the good ground

The grace of Christ is the only good ground for life. -Hebrews 13:9

Yet, for the well practiced insider, it’s not enough. They strive for wisdom, power, or authority and rank them higher in importance than the nakedness of grace. They want a showcase for what they’ve done. Every act of service is a photo op. It’s as though they’re building a monument of service to display when they’re asked what they’ve done with their lives.

When you ask God for more of Him, He asks you for your worst. He levels your pretense and makes you face reality.

Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.”

The woman said, “Sir, give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty, won’t ever have to come back to this well again!”

He said, “Go call your husband and then come back.”

“I have no husband,” she said.

“That’s nicely put: ‘I have no husband.’ You’ve had five husbands, and the man you’re living with now isn’t even your husband. You spoke the truth there, sure enough.” -John 4:13-18

If grace is the only good ground for life, then one way or another you will be made aware of your need for it. You can’t ignore the damaged places in your life because every time you try to move forward and leave them behind, He’ll bring you right back to them. If you’ve glossed over and given them the seal of ‘redeemed’ even though they’re not, those areas will bleed through your white wedding dress and let everyone know what you’ve been hiding.

You already know what area I’m talking about and you can push it down with all the authority of human stubbornness, but you’ll never win this battle. You can go over this and over this as many times as you choose. Being stubborn and seeing yourself through is not a virtue, it’s a disease. It’s submission He wants, not strength. God doesn’t care how messy it gets and He’s in no hurry.

You don’t look at things the way we mortals do. You’re not taken in by appearances, are you? Unlike us, you’re not working against a deadline. You have all eternity to work things out. -Job 10:4-5

When you finally break down and face your demons you will not be alone. You’ll find the strength and the wisdom you’ve been striving for and it will come in your brokenness. It’s what you’ve wanted all along. Grace is the photo op. Grace is the only thing you should have on display. All of the other things you want to pour out of your life will effortlessly flow from the well of grace by no stubborn striving of your own.

get out of the way

Your sin is not what is keeping you from peace, joy or any other ‘fruit of the spirit‘. It’s the opposite. Being aware of your sin coupled with your belief that Jesus is who He says He is actually creates the ‘fruit‘. It’s found in the contrast. You need the dark to know when you see light.

No matter how many times sin punches his time card, there is no more payment to be made. Jesus made us debt free, even while sin is still clocking in with our time clock. Our sin was paid in advance and is now working in arrears. We don’t owe sin anything. We’ve been freed up to do other things.

The ‘fruit’ scripture talks about is not something you do, it’s something you get.

Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. -Romans 6:22 ESV

With everybody walking around with their ‘judge them by their fruit’ checklist, it’s no wonder people feel like they have to prove themselves. People have no problem carrying a knockoff as long as nobody else can tell. It’s all about perception.

Con’s decide what they want to be, learn what those people do and how they look and then emulate it. But, in order to not be questioned, they go the extra mile and get more extreme. You can tell the fake by their excessive embellishment. Inflated emotions and pimped out experiences are used like smoke and mirrors so people don’t have the space to question them. They sprinkle themselves in glitter because they don’t know how else to emulate ‘light‘.

…the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true. -Ephesians 5:9 ESV

We are made ‘good and true‘ by faith, not by what we do or don’t do or how much glitter we have. The ‘fruit of light‘ is in us by consequence of faith. We can’t manufacture the ‘fruit‘ any more than we can produce our own salvation.

…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness… -Galatians 5:22 ESV

You can’t look at the list of ‘fruit‘ and try to display those things with behavior. They are the result, not the goal. They are the outcome, not the instigator. A person can set out a fancy bowl of fake fruit and all you can do is sit there and look at it. A hungry person won’t come to them.

peace…

You cannot have peace by not sinning because it is impossible to not sin. You get peace, the kind scripture talks about, through faith that the sin has been paid for. Peace is in knowing that, no matter what, you can never mess this up.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. -Romans 5:1 ESV

joy…

You cannot have joy by not sinning. If you had the ability to not sin, it would not have the ability to give you joy. The joy that scripture talks about, real joy, is only experienced through grace. Grace is experienced through faith that your sin cannot destroy you. Grace is God’s choosing to wipe you clean no matter how many times you come up filthy. Grace is God never giving up on you. If He never gives up on you, then you have hope and hope gives you joy. Real joy.

Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. -Romans 5:2 ESV

patience…

It is impossible to have patience without something to require patience. Someone who never suffers is never called ‘patient‘. In life, the worst suffering comes with the threat of losing hope. If you have no hope, then there is nothing for which to be patient. Life is full of loss, but the only loss that reaches into eternity is the one that threatens to take away your hope. Sin is the only threat that can reach into eternity and if you believe that Jesus paid sin in full, then the suffering that sin causes can only produce patience because believing in grace gives you hope.

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance… -Romans 5:3 ESV

kindness, goodness, faithfulness…

There are so many people who are trying to do all the right things but have no peace or joy and it’s making them impatient, agitated and frustrated. If you’re paralyzed in the fight against yourself, then your agitation is competing with your ability to be kind. Your frustration is blinding your ability to experience goodness. If you have no faith, you have no ‘fruit‘. Especially ‘faithfulness‘.

You can’t do anything right enough to ensure you are who you’re supposed to be and are displaying what you think you need to display.

Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. -Galatians 5:23

You’re absolutely incapable of living out the life God planned for you. You’ve got to get out of your own way. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you’ll experience what real freedom is. One day you’ll be walking along, oblivious to yourself, and someone will point out your fruit. Fruit you didn’t even know you had.

Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ. -Romans 3:23-34

as you love yourself

“Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most important?”

Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.” -Matthew 22:36-40

Everything in God’s law hangs from the command to ‘love others as you love yourself’ and ‘love God’ with everything in you. You have to consider how you ‘love yourself’ and how your view of yourself is affected by your view of God.

I’ve heard people say that they have no problem believing in grace for someone else, but are unable believe it for themselves. You either believe it or you don’t. I don’t understand the reasoning behind it. It appears to say that they hold themselves to a different standard than they do others. Self-contempt may appear to look submissive, however, it’s anything but. They can quote the scriptures about grace and God’s unrelenting love, but their inability to believe it for themselves has a well shrouded root of pride. They require a better performance, a higher standard, than their Creator.

It is impossible to carry out the most important commandment, the Love Law, for others when you can’t do it for yourself. You’re just detached enough from the others to not have any of yourself invested in them, and therefore can offer an aloof and meaningless statement of grace and love.

Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? -James 2:14

I can tell people all day long that it’s possible to flap your wings and fly. I can write books on the technique, attend seminars and quote the mantra’s but, unless my words are put in to action, they’re meaningless.

If you believed it, you would do it. God pours Himself in to you and that’s the only way you have anything to pour out. If it’s not in you, then you’ve just learned language and are calling it faith.

Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense? -James 2:17

No one can believe for you just like you can’t believe for someone else. It’s fundamental hot air. A dirty exhaust pipe polluting the air with meaningless smoke. It’s lukewarm God spit.

You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove. -James 2:18

You cannot love others if you do not love yourself. You cannot offer grace to others if you don’t accept it for yourself. You cannot love God with everything in you when you’re holding back because of your failures. You are a walking corpse who cannot do anything unless you believe in what God has done for you. You can say that you believe, but if you can’t take the action to accept it, then you’re still dead.

Do I hear you professing to believe in the one and only God, but then observe you complacently sitting back as if you had done something wonderful? That’s just great. Demons do that, but what good does it do them? Use your heads! Do you suppose for a minute that you can cut faith and works in two and not end up with a corpse on your hands? -James 2:19-20

I realize that, if this hits close to home, it may feel uncomfortable. I won’t apologize for the way it makes you feel when there is the chance that the truth in these scriptures can cattle prod you into the life you so desperately want. You, in and of yourself, may be right about you. Maybe you’re a mess of unlovable. Thank God your worth is not up to you. If you’re here, you have a purpose. You have to understand the way God sees you. You were made with intent. The gift of grace is Jesus’ way of making sure you are not ruined by you. Learn lessons from your failures, not self-hate.

When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. -Romans 5:20

“Here is a test to find whether your mission in life is finished: if you are alive, it isn’t.” -Richard Bach

“To put away aimlessness and weakness, and to begin to think with purpose, is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only recognize failure as one of the pathways to attainment; who make all conditions serve them, and who think strongly, attempt fearlessly, and accomplish masterfully.” -James Allen

“Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.’”-William Cowper

life on God’s terms

My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves. -1 John 3:18-20

If you are caught in the trap of self-critisism, then you are incapable of carrying out the command to love. You are focused completely on yourself when you focus on your failures and when you fight to rebuild your reputation. You’re waiting for men to see you and validate you before you walk out of your pit of self-loathing.

Men may never see your suffering and will, therefore, never tell you you’ve had enough. You may always be ‘that guy‘ to them and as long as you give them the power over your restitution, you will never be free.

There are some sins that humans can handle better than others, so the scale is never balanced. When you are a person who has made mistakes that rocked the foundations of lives and repulsed their imaginations, you may never be able to undo that damage by your ‘good works’ and self-imposed sentence. As long as you are trying to pay your penance, you are willfully staying ‘lost’.

The grace of Jesus does not wait for the dust to settle. It doesn’t wait for you to wash off the blood spatter or for the gun to stop smoking. Grace doesn’t wait for you to sober up. It doesn’t wait for the apology. The immediacy of grace makes everyone uncomfortable. The all-encompassing nature of grace infringes on the sensibilities of human justice. There is always a point of contention in the personal stories of God’s grace that leave people with the sense that somebody got away with something. It seems that something is left unanswered.

Self-critisism has the underlying root of disbelief. Your faith is what saves you and the lack of faith leaves you feeling like you still have to pay. When you consider the price that Jesus paid for sin, you have to decide if what He did was enough. Is your sin bigger than that sacrifice?

It’s common for you to see your willful disobedience and complete disregard for decency to deem you unworthy. We are all unworthy, remember, but who receives the free gift is not up to you. Get over it and get on with the life that He died to give you. Your sin was not ’spitting on the cross’, but believing your sin is more powerful is.

You stay ‘willfully lost’ when you refuse to accept the fact that Jesus paid your penance.

Jesus was sent for you because God knows your heart better than you do. The fact that you even care about your failures is evidence that you are one of His. If you are one of His, then there is no escape from His grasp. Use your sin as an opportunity to sever your relationship with your ’self’ and let it die the death it’s headed for anyway. Practice the Love Law, that is by it’s very nature ’self-less’, it’s the only way to stop the endless cycle of self-condemnation.

In this context, the way to ‘practice the Love Law’ is by laying your life down and stepping away from it. They don’t have to see you as ‘clean’ or ‘forgiven’. When they doubt you, shrug it off. When they whisper about you, let them. When they attack you, take it.

They’re not in charge of compassion and mercy.

God told Moses, “I’m in charge of mercy. I’m in charge of compassion.” Compassion doesn’t originate in our bleeding hearts or moral sweat, but in God’s mercy. -Romans 9:15-16

They don’t get a say in who God forgives or in how He uses a life the ‘builders have thrown out.’

The stone the masons discarded as flawed is now the capstone! This is God’s work. -Psalm 118:22

This is your way to walk down the same road Jesus traveled when He was here. People got it’s start hating Him, so what if they hate you, too?

If you find the godless world is hating you, remember it got its start hating me. If you lived on the world’s terms, the world would love you as one of its own. But since I picked you to live on God’s terms and no longer on the world’s terms, the world is going to hate you. -John 15:18-19

The ‘godless world’ is not limited to the realm beyond the church doors. The ‘godless world’ has been inside the church for a long time. ‘Godlessness’ is life against ‘God’s terms’. ‘God’s terms’ is referring to the life of grace and peace that Jesus sacrifice provided.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. -Galatians 1:3-5

grace in real life

‘We are men of action, lies do not become us.’ -Westley, The Princess Bride

I watched gossip rip through a man’s life and roadblock ninety-nine percent of God’s compassion from traveling through the hearts of those who heard and believed. It started from the loose tongue of an unthinking man who was trying to validate his point and strengthen his side of an argument. He used the failure of his old friend and twisted it enough to help his cause, but still be believable.

Gossip always takes liberties with the truth. You can’t take pieces of the truth and fill the holes with your own common sense. God never set you loose with a tool belt of ‘pride fueled agenda’ and a ‘forked tongue’ to start hammering away at guess work. Taking liberties with the truth is lying. Lies have a father and it’s not your Father.

When [Satan] lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. -John 8:44 NIV

The man made a thoughtless comment to another man with a loose tongue and the corruption spread like wildfire across the country. There is no way to rope it in and make it right. There is no undoing the damage that has been done.

It would be easy for me to let self-righteous indignation get in the way of what God tells me to do:

Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you. -Ephesians 4:1

Just because a person did not do this, themselves, does not remove God’s instruction to me or to you. This is not an eye for and eye existence. Not since Jesus, anyway. This man has, since, confessed and asked for forgiveness.

I know what it’s like to do something self-serving and thoughtless. I’ve watched my mistakes rip through the fabric of lives I’ll never be able to face. My own mistakes have sent pain, like wildfire, that has spread across the country and I’ll never be able to, on my own, make it right. Self-righteous indignation, on my part, would be a complete disregard to the grace that Jesus poured into me. I can never repay my own debt, so I can’t expect others to repay theirs.

This is not, so much, a post about gossip as it is a post about the opportunity to pour out grace. It’s real. It’s powerful and it creates life.

That’s what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we’re going in our new grace-sovereign country. -Romans 6:3-5

There is a sin nature within me that wants to level the playing field using sin as the weight on the scales.Tit for tat. However, according to this life I have entered, sin is not the sovereign ruler, grace is. If you use grace as the weight on the scales, then God wins. This is me, waving the flag of my home country. A country with open arms, not clenched fists. A country with tender hearts, not protective ones. A country where I do not need to win, because if I win, then one of God’s children loses and then we all lose.

Tit for tat only deepens the life of sin that we’ve been set free from.

Forgiveness is the ultimate middle finger to the very entity of evil. – ‘Grace Is For Sinners’

And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously. -Matthew 5:42

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

This man may never know the full effect of his sin, but to the one’s it matters to the most, he is more than forgiven. That’s grace in real life. It’s the attitude that turns directly to God and says, ‘Thank you.’

eating is believing

When you witness the devastation of another person’s sin, it’s hard to believe that they can come back from that with any kind of new life or anything of value to offer.

One of the hardest things for people to accept is grace. Sin is a death to something.

We say that we believe the story of Jesus. However, we weren’t there to witness the dust on the roads or breeze in the air that surrounded him. We can grasp it in the same way we can grasp a fairy tale. We can be dreamy and hopeful enough to say we believe in it, but what would it be like to actually be there to witness it?

I think you can find at least a hint of an answer in the way you think about sin and grace. Equate it with death and life. Watch a person hang from the noose of their own sin and then try to believe in the resurrection of grace. It’s hard to accept it, especially if you witnessed the death yourself.

The cross was still there. The grave was occupied. There is no doubt about that.

The pain of sin is still there. You saw them fall to their death. There is no doubt about that.

The women went to the tomb armed to tend to the stench of a decaying body. It doesn’t matter how devoted they were to Jesus, they still went through the motions of death.

Christians are very good at damage control. They carry their satchel of spices intended to mask the stench of death, sealing the fallen in a tomb meant for the dead. It doesn’t matter how well they know the Gospel, they still go through the motions of death.

If those women found a body in that tomb, then the story would be over. He’d be chalked up as just another ego-maniac claiming to be God’s gift to the world.

If you go to the cemetery of fallen Christians and are able to find anyone there, then something has gone horribly wrong.

“Why do you seek the living among the dead?” -Luke 24:5 ESV

The women were afraid and confused. Those who saw Jesus pulled away from him like he was a ghost.

Seeing someone, whose sin you witnessed, stirs up confusing emotions.

We can believe a lot of things. But life after something like this…it’s too much. We’re trying to make sense of it all, but we’re looking at an empty grave to give us answers and ignoring the new life that is walking, talking and eating right in front of us.

It would be so much simpler if the dead stayed dead. But Jesus woke up and He walked out.

Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them kept telling these things to the apostles, but the apostles didn’t believe a word of it, thought they were making it all up. -Luke 24:9-11

Any time you tell a story of sin and grace, there are people who can’t get past the sin and don’t believe a word of the grace. When a person gets up and walks out of their tomb, there are a lot of people who think they’re just making up their remorse.

The resurrection of Jesus makes grace possible. He walked out of His tomb so that all of us sinners can walk out of ours.

When you have a hard time trusting in the ability of grace to transform a person instead of leaving them to rot, then you have to come to terms with your inability to trust that Jesus really is who he says he is.

“So thick-headed! So slow-hearted! Why can’t you simply believe all that the prophets said? Don’t you see that these things had to happen, that the Messiah had to suffer and only then enter into his glory?” -Luke 24:25-26

There is an order to this Kingdom life. It starts with death and ends with life.

If you’re in the middle of sorting ghosts and gory memories, it’s okay. It’s part of the process. The disciples didn’t believe the man was Jesus until they spent time ‘breaking bread’ with him.

Here is what happened: He sat down at the table with them. Taking the bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them. At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognized him. -Luke 24:29-31

They went to tell some of their friends and those friends brought up a storm of doubts and questions. Jesus met with those people, too.

“Don’t be upset, and don’t let all these doubting questions take over. Look at my hands; look at my feet—it’s really me. Touch me. Look me over from head to toe.” -Luke 24:38-39

They stood back in disbelief while they watched him eat a piece of leftover fish. Did they look through their eyebrows when they watched him? Could he feel their doubt burn into his scars? Grace, life after death, seems too good to be true. Humans pride themselves on their wisdom and you know what they say about something that seems too good to be true.

Jesus was patient with their doubt because he knew the truth. If you’re experiencing the doubt of others about you, be patient while you wait for restoration.

If you are having trouble trusting, forgiving, or believing the resurrected life of someone you watched ‘die’, then maybe you should spend time with them like the disciples did with Jesus. Maybe it’s time for you, too, to ‘break some bread’ so you can leave the graveyard behind.

Here are the practical things you can take away from Luke 24:

• You know you have issues with faith when you have a hard time believing someone can be restored after one of the ‘big sins.’ With this in mind, you hardly have time to pick them apart when you realize you don’t even believe Jesus was raised from the dead.
• A blow to your faith that, (as far as you knew) was intact prior to this experience, is normal and Jesus has an absurd amount of patience while you catch up.
• Doubt about another person’s healing in the aftermath of sin can be addressed over a meal (or seven). Spend time with them. Listen to them. Doubting is not the problem, writing them off as frauds is. Get over yourself and call that person you watched die. (or their ghost will haunt you. )
• It’s time to break bread.

“The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” -Matthew 11:19

the order of things

(Additional thoughts added to help clarify for those who asked are written like this.)

There are so many who writhe in the memory of their own sin and what it did to ruin their relationship with God. They think, ‘If only I hadn’t…’ and mourn for what they lost and for what they destroyed. It’s as though they could have done something to keep themselves clean. (I’m thinking about all of the people who contact me that are stuck in that place and feel no hope. They want to go back and make better choices and they can’t. They’re kicking themselves because they knew better.)

This line of thinking, believing you could have done something, keeps you from the only thing that can make you clean. (If you’re constantly focusing on your past mistakes, especially pertaining to ‘knowing better’, then you aren’t moving forward.) You, before your big fall, were still inept, you just didn’t know it. (You don’t know you’re sick until you have symptoms. In the same way, you don’t know your weaknesses until they trip you up. You don’t know what you’re capable of until you do it.) You thought you were ‘good’. (Because you didn’t do ‘bad’ things.) You did not consider what Jesus did, because you didn’t ‘need’ to. (Not in that raw ‘He’s my only hope way.’) There may have been a translucent scent of ‘I’m a sinner in need of Jesus‘, but only because it’s part of the Christian costume. (It’s like saying you’re ‘dying of hunger’ because you’re hungry, but not like people who are actually dying of hunger. We say these big things without really connecting to them.) The inability to forgive is the proof that you never believed in the first place. (To forgive yourself or others. If you can’t forgive yourself, then you never believed what you were saying, ‘I’m a sinner in need of Jesus.’)

There is something within us that makes us believe we have the ability to always choose right over wrong and good over evil. (‘I know better!’) Why is it, then, that we don’t succeed? If you know right from wrong, have every intention of always choosing right, why don’t we? We can lie to ourselves as much as we want. We can make excuses, dumb down our role in the wrong, but what good does that do? Relying on your ability, whether it’s to do right or explain it well enough when you don’t, is not relying on Jesus. (Justifying your actions with excuses and not being able to forgive yourself when you can’t justify are both evidences of not depending on Jesus.)

We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it—and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen! Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good. -Galatians 2:16

You cannot do this on your own. You can’t get it right. You can’t keep yourself blameless. If you think you can, you are further from ’spotless’ than the man with his body covered with a road rash from sin. It goes against our common sense to see things the way they really are (the ‘Kingdom’ way). (For example: it’s better to be an obvious mess than to be a hidden pit of self-righteousness. Being flawed is not the problem. acting as though you’re not is.) To see a person’s worst makes those who haven’t yet met their own worst feel morally superior. It’s hard not to, but a gleaming outside is not evidence of a gleaming inside. Mercy, compassion, grace…LOVE, is evidence of a gleaming inside. Those things have nothing to do with sin. They have everything to do with what they believe.

I want you to know, my very dear friends, that it is on account of this resurrected Jesus that the forgiveness of your sins can be promised. He accomplishes, in those who believe, everything that the Law of Moses could never make good on. But everyone who believes in this raised-up Jesus is declared good and right and whole before God. -Acts 13:41

It’s a promise. An an unaffected promise that is not dependent on what we do or don’t do. He does not wait to make good when you earn and He does not rescind when you mess up. Sin is not a definer, it’s a reminder. If your salvation depended on you, you’d never make it. Jesus did not go through the crucifixion just to leave His gift open to being over shadowed by what it conquered. He didn’t give you forgiveness to have when you don’t need it. If that’s the case, then He gave you nothing. (It’s like a doctor only seeing well patients. A hospital not allowing you in if you’re bleeding. They brag about their technology and ability to serve the community, but not if you need them. It’s getting denied for health insurance if they think you’ll use them.)

When Jesus said, ‘It is finished,’ what do you think He was talking about? What is ‘it‘?

Everything written about me is now coming to a conclusion. -Luke 22:37

‘It‘ is what was written about him. And this is what ‘it‘ is referring to:

Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant, will make many “righteous ones,” as he himself carries the burden of their sins. Therefore I’ll reward him extravagantly— the best of everything, the highest honors—Because he looked death in the face and didn’t flinch, because he embraced the company of the lowest. He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, he took up the cause of all the black sheep. -Isaiah 53:11-12

Those who belong to Jesus are not responsible for the debt of their sin. He is not embracing the ‘highest’, He embraces the ‘lowest’ and that is how He is honored. (That blows my mind and will probably be another blog post.) He carries the dead weight of the outcast, the imperfect, the flawed, the broken, wanting, poor, wretched and wrong and that is how He is ‘honored.’ (Are you getting that? Jesus is honored by embracing the worst, not the best. I really will have to dig into that later in another blog.)

In trying to be good, whole and sufficient on your own, what does that do to His honor? (In light of that scripture.)

We’re used to hearing about the effects of grace pertaining to the desires of our heart changing and certain habits or tendencies being roped in, but we’re not used to hearing this story in order. We try to look at the effects and perform the role in order to receive the cause. (Grace, love, mercy change people. But people look at the changes it makes and start faking them, hoping they’ll keep themselves in grace, love, mercy. Sort of a ‘fake it till ya make it’ mentality. It’s a loaded thought, but it’s what makes me giddy.) It’s my goal to get you to look at this in order. First thing’s first otherwise the whole system is corrupted by human effort. (If all of the attention is on what a ‘Christian’ should look like, then people will be using that as their standard and goal, not Jesus. I might need to write another book…)

If those who get what God gives them only get it by doing everything they are told to do and filling out all the right forms properly signed, that eliminates personal trust completely and turns the promise into an ironclad contract! That’s not a holy promise; that’s a business deal. A contract drawn up by a hard-nosed lawyer and with plenty of fine print only makes sure that you will never be able to collect. But if there is no contract in the first place, simply a promise—and God’s promise at that—you can’t break it. -Romans 4:14-15

We have to approach ourselves and others with the essence of the Gospel, the cause of righteousness (Jesus, because of what He did, makes you righteous. Not doing righteous things.), and not the residuals that are entirely personal and dependent on you or another’s personal journey. (People are too different for others to be stereotyping them. You can never size up a person’s relationship with God by anything humanly perceivable with certainty. It’s disgusting to even try. If you are focused on what Jesus did, then you won’t have time to focus on what anybody else is doing. Nothing can trump grace, so just focus on that.) Paul referenced this line of thinking, the order of things, when he said:

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

talk of the town

Everything in the world is about to be wrapped up, so take nothing for granted. Stay wide-awake in prayer. Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything. -1 Peter 4:7

One of the hardest things for a believer to do is remember that there is a perspective other than what we can see and touch and ‘making things right’ has no deadline.

You don’t look at things the way we mortals do. You’re not taken in by appearances, are you? Unlike us, you’re not working against a deadline. You have all eternity to work things out. -Job 10:4-5

We’re spiritual beings. We are connected by the Spirit that lives inside of each of our beautifully created bodies. Maybe knowing the Spirit of Jesus lives within each person who believes in Him, we can understand how what you do to another, you do to Him (Mat25:40&45)

Separated by our arguments and failures, we are giving our ‘flesh and blood’ lives the power. We make decisions based on emotional inclinations. This puts us in an miserable spot. Your ‘flesh and blood’ response to a situation is bound to change over time and you’re setting things in stone that will be irrellevant in the light of day.

We know only a portion of the truth…We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. -1 Corinthians 13:8

We are told that we don’t know enough about what’s really going on to be able to make any decision other than to act according to Love. (1 Cor. 13) Yet we don’t remember what is true in the spirit when we are dealing with what hurts in the flesh. We are told to be quick to forgive, yet we put restrictions on that forgiveness, in effect restricting our freedom along with it. Can’t we, for a second, consider that God may know what He’s talking about and so we should act out of trust that He’s trying to keep us from any futher harm?

What if we run after peace? What if we chase down the loose strings and turn a frayed end into a forceful knot? Spirit to Spirit, forgiving the shortcomings of a flesh that we knew was corrupt before we saw the evidence. “Fool me once, shame on you….fool me twice…” We’re afraid of being hurt, we’re afraid of looking like fools.

But…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 13:13

Forgiveness defuses the bomb. Love covers a multitude. Hands joined together are better than arms crossed against chests. It’s not about staying alert for the inevitable Satan Attack, it’s seeing your role in the attack that is well underway.

If we turn on each other, then he doesn’t have to.

Deny the flesh. Cultivate peace. Make your love the talk of the town. When they ask you why you’re still holding hands, then tell them the Truth.

children of light

Sooner or later we’ll all have to face God, regardless of our conditions. -2 Corinthians 5:10

How often do you read scripture or hear preaching that makes you think of someone besides yourself? It’s normal to feel a sense of vengeance when you consider that the actions of others, actions you’ve deemed sinful, will be judged by God.

It’s hard not to want the people who have hurt you to pay. You want people to know how they’ve made you doubt, how they’ve made you insecure, how they’ve made you feel like you didn’t exist. You want them to feel bad. Really bad, like the way stern disapproval from God would feel.

Fantasizing about a day of judgment when they can finally see everything the way it is and not the way they think it is.

The problem with this mental trap is when you fail to see how you’ve dumped your own poison to the pot. Sitting in opposition to another is never a clear cut division. If you have sides in an argument, sides as a result of sin fallout, then you know you’re doing something wrong. It’s hard to see how your hard heart toward another is wrong when you feel like you’re right.

‘Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are. One carnal judgment of another person only serves the purposes of hell in you.” -Oswald Chambers

Stop focusing on what others are doing wrong. When it all comes out, it will be bad enough, don’t make it worse. Your grudges and lists make you look bad, not them. Don’t buy in to the religious fantasy that you understand God and all the dark threads He weaves into your life. You have no idea what He’s doing.

If you’ve ever been misunderstood or misjudged, then you can be assured you have misunderstood and misjudged others. Focus on your own need for Jesus and leave the speck in your friends’ eye to the One who can see it clearly. God doesn’t use a soft light when He’s setting things right. No one can pass muster.

Woe to all of you who want God’s Judgment Day! Why would you want to see God, want him to come? When God comes, it will be bad news before it’s good news, the worst of times, not the best of times… At God’s coming we face hard reality, not fantasy—a black cloud with no silver lining. -Amos 5:18-20

If Jesus is real, then live like it. You represent Him, not your standard for Christian living. Don’t make a list of Christian behaviors to check off during the day.

(Read Bible? Check. Pray? Check. Smile a lot? Check. Witness to sinners? Check. Ask for forgiveness for speeding? Check. Ask for forgiveness for honking at the idiot in front of me? Check. Congratulate myself for not becoming prideful of my ability to submit my sins to Jesus as they happen? check. Speak ‘truth in love’ to the smokers out in the parking lot? Check. Speak ‘truth in love’ to the fellow Christian who didn’t pray over her lunch? Check. Look for opportunities to speak more ‘truth in love’, find more sinners and ask for more forgiveness? Check.)

If you really have a grasp on what Jesus did and what it means, you wouldn’t be so obsessed and uptight about the morality of self and others. If you really ‘walked in the light’ of truth, you would be embracing others, thorns and all. You respond to others the way Jesus responds to you. If you’re not getting scratched and dirty, then you’ve got the wrong Jesus on your dashboard.

‘For many of us, walking in the light means walking according to the standard we have set up for another person.’ -Oswald Chambers

But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin. -1 John 1:6

“As you have the light, believe in the light. Then the light will be within you, and shining through your lives. You’ll be children of light.” -John 12:36

get over yourself

We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. -Collosians 1:15-17

God, who is Love, planned for Jesus before He planned for you. Jesus came first and He comes last. (I’m not trying to show off with redundant and forced proclamations about a sandy blonde half surfer-looking/half halo endowed Nazarene whom I know nothing about. I’m saying this to an end that should set you free.) The plan for Jesus came first. Knowing that, believing that, you have to let it complete its implication that your sin has no power.

I’ll try to explain this the best way I can.

Jesus and all that He finished on the cross comes first and nothing can trump that.

It is Jesus and …nothing but Jesus. You may say, ‘but, sin…’ However, you still have to follow it up with Jesus. There is no, ‘Jesus, but sin’ There is only ’sin, but Jesus.’ I’ve heard many people say, ‘Yes, Jesus died for our sins, but you have to….‘ I’m saying ‘NO!’ you don’t ‘have to‘ anything.

‘For everything, absolutely everything,…‘ even sin? ‘For everything, absolutely everything…finds its purpose in him.’

If you believe that, then you are free. Is this making sense? If you mention sin, you always have to mention grace. Why not just live in grace and let sin die? Don’t speak the ‘dead language of sin’ just speak the life language of grace.

From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did. -Romans 6:10-11

Sin illuminates Jesus.

More need, more provision of grace. Jesus wins. Grace wins. We find our (a sin flawed human race) purpose in Jesus. If He was destined to be our Savior, it was because your destiny, without Him, is to die in sin. When you fall down, you are reminded of your insufficiency. It’s never a bad thing to be aware that you need Jesus. It’s a beautiful picture of God’s sovereignty over what is designed to destroy you. When you fall, take inventory of your weakness, trace it down to the root and submit it to God, then move on. When any attack comes and tries to hold you down, tell your attacker that your sin is irrelevant because of Jesus.

He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross. -Collosians 1:18-20

People are terrified to teach you these things because they think it sets you free to sin. It just sets you free.

Your inclination for sin is and will always be there, so instead of leaving you high and dry, God sets your feet firmly planted in Him. You shouldn’t be scared. It’s not a ‘freedom to sin’ it’s a ‘freedom in spite of sin.’ You’ll sin whether you’re free or not. Jesus, simply put, took care of the problem of death.

Ask any Christian, any person with a heart after God, if they want to sin. Better yet, ask yourself that question and you’ll find a screaming ‘NO!’ But, is your desire to not make bad choices enough to keep you from them? At times, yes, but overwhelmingly and ultimately no. Paul beautifully described the battle that we can all identify with. Grace doesn’t make you want to sin. Grace sets you free from the death it demands.

Grace and your belief in the finality of Jesus’ sin conquering death marks you for life.

You are a slave to grace, never free from it, never able to outrun it, never able to out sin it. Your life and all of its flaws are a perfectly crafted petri dish specimen of God’s plan for humanity. Jesus is the constant and you, in Him, are an example of what His death accomplished. You see here that not even sin can mess up God’s purpose, it only magnifies it and continually creates the ‘new’ in His already written and published story of His salvation power.

I’m saying this: Alright, so you messed up. So what? Learn and get off your butt. My gosh, get over yourself and get on with your purpose.

You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God’s side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You don’t walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. -Collosians 1-21-23