Posted: November 30th, 2011 |
Filed under: life | Tags: grace, hope |
15 Comments »
Like every baby before her, she was pale when she came out. Blue, almost. Before her infant screams invited oxygen to pink her cheeks, she already had a name. Her mother, tired from child birth and bleeding from nine-months of preparation, whispered her name before the sweat evaporated from her forehead. Mother and child, a mess of labor, both swollen from the trauma of new life, stared in each other’s eyes. And the new mother whispered her name.
Like every baby before her, she screamed through the night, stealing her mother’s sleep. Cradling her in her arms, she sang her name.
When she was three, she would spin to make her dress float up in a magical circle that made her feel like a princess and she would sing her own name.
The years counted her age, always the same day, always one number older. One by one, her name accumulated baggage. She could reinvent her wardrobe, she could reinvent her friends, she could reinvent her surroundings, but she will always have her name.
All of her mistakes were quilted into the blanket of life she was creating. Pictures were burned into the fabric like stains against her memory. The walls of her life are marked with holes from things she has long since taken down.
Her name on the tongues of others added dirt to the curve of the letters.
She made choices without knowing the future. She set faulty bricks with mortar. She put her name on shady lines with permanent ink. She said things that she cannot take back.
Her name has lost the possibility that was whispered in her mother’s hope. She’s a disappointment losing time and the will to keep starting over. Too many people know her name and memory stains every vowel and hardens every consonant.
What hope do you have when you’ve ruined your name? It’s been called out in courthouses, written in permanent delinquent files, banned from dinner tables, and mixed with the bitter spit of betrayal. What can you do when you can’t be who you hoped you could have been?
She would almost prefer to be called a slut. A slut has one purpose and none of her mother’s dreams. She is more comfortable with ‘Liar’. At least ‘Liar’ knows who she is. Her name has too much pang of wanting to be better.
Even if she lived the rest of her life with a firm grip on her best, her name is still written on the pages of history with every single mistake she has made.
The problem with being new on the inside is that the outside is still there. You can change your sheets, but you can’t change your hands. You can’t stop the flashbacks. You have to constantly remind yourself that your mistakes have been forgiven by the only one who matters. It’s a battle of endurance with a spotty cheering section.
“To the one who conquers … I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.” -Revelation 2:17
We have a horrible habit of taking names and attributing damage to them. You may have done a terrible job with your name, you may have equated it with words I’m too intelligent to write. I get it. I know the feeling and I have been called the names. I have done more things that I wish I could take back than things for which I am able to take credit. But, here’s the deal: This life is not all there is.
You are not what you’ve done. Even when trying your best, you’re going to screw it up. You have a new name somewhere out there and not even you can mess that one up.
Posted: November 29th, 2011 |
Filed under: life | Tags: grace, sifted as wheat |
12 Comments »
I know that my writing is challenging. I never thought it was, initially, but with the amount of feedback I get telling me that it is, I’ve come to accept it. It’s weird to me, sharing about God’s love and grace, to bump into the friction of disbelief. It’s not like I’m saying anything new. None of it is new, but I guess it’s just not widely or clearly taught.
When did Jesus get watered down so much that the truth about Him became offensive? I think the answer to my own question is found in how He died. He has always represented a challenge.
People can get by on diluted perfume for only so long. It eventually stops working and the stench of life is the only thing left. Every single person must arrive at a place of spiritual awareness that screams their personal inadequacy and reveals the need for something, or Someone, bigger. Salvation begins with desolation within the person. You must know death to know life. (Read Romans 11 for further study.)
Salvation is a mystery. We only have a few solid clues to provide a hint of understanding. What happens is that the implications of the clues are in direct opposition to human nature. Pride and self-rightiousness get in the way.
One aspect of salvation that is particularly hard to accept is the part where the individual has to know complete depravity, that is, they have to fully realize their equality with the worst kind of person before they can accept Jesus. The difficulty is the bastard child of ‘I would never do that.’
Further, one of the most difficult aspects of faith is when someone tells you that it is easier for the worst of them to accept salvation than it is for the decently average. That kind of message makes the chest of the decently average puff with pride. It’s as though the message takes something away from them. They’ve worked all day. ’These last workers put in only one easy hour, and you just made them equal to us, who slaved all day under a scorching sun (Mat 20:12).’
The message of the Gospel, the message of salvation, the message of Jesus, the message of grace is hard to swallow. It’s good news to some and an abomination to others.
The depraved are starving for truth and too weak to fight on their own. They drink from the Well of Salvation like gluttons. All the while, others are pulling out their guns with rocks for bullets. They are fighting for self, rationing the Truth and applying standards that were never imposed by the Gospel. They’re louder. They’re meaner.
The Gospel is the Great Reversal. It turns common sense, even tradition, on it’s head. It lets in the unworthy and demands brokenness. It’s easier for those who know their sin than it is for those who ‘have it all together’.
Grace Is For Sinners is making a conference called ‘Sifted As Wheat’. It’s a time and a place for people to come together and explore the magnitude of Jesus and His display of God’s love in such a way that will completely rock those who attend. There will be deep scriptural teaching to explore the truth and many opportunities set aside to ask and answer questions. I’ll keep you posted with periodic updates as the plans begin to come together.
I am excited for you to take this journey with me. I’ll be writing a book and a study workbook to be used at the conference. It will be like an entire Bible Study series in one packed weekend. The goal is to solidify the Truth of the bare basics of the Christian faith so that the rest of life can be lived in the freedom that Truth brings. This is me answering the call to ‘strengthen my brothers’. (Luke 22:31-32)
You can visit the conference website for more information.
Posted: November 23rd, 2011 |
Filed under: God, life | Tags: aftermath, faith, grace, purpose, sin |
12 Comments »
Broken One,
I’m thinking about you today. Holidays don’t make everything better, do they? Holidays only stop the routine distractions that keep you from thinking and shove the reality into your tiny tent of safety. Reality echos off the emptiness. The things you used to bake aren’t welcome on that table anymore. Life goes on without you and you’re still here to feel the loss. They have each other and you have your emptiness.
Something I learned in that tent is that all the meaning I used to give these weeks of whirl are drowned out by the deeper meaning of what they’re really about. Instead of my ability to create a magical experience, I was whittled down to complete inability to right my wrongs and fix my mistakes. When I was unable to create meaning, Meaning found me. The removal of routine distractions forced me to see what had real Meaning.
It’s a quiet voice that won’t let you die. It’s as without effort as your heartbeat and your never ending breath in and breath out. You can’t stop life no more than you can create it. You can’t will yourself dead just like the dying can’t will themselves more time. The fact that you’re still alive is proof that you still have purpose. It all has purpose. The pain of emptiness, loneliness, and brokenness have a purpose and no one can save you from it. You may not know it right now, (I’m almost positive that you don’t), but your pain is your salvation…real salvation, not sentimental salvation. No one can save you from what becomes your salvation.
The fact that you’re still here is proof that your story isn’t over. That kind of hope is stronger than your strength to make it out of the desire to make it. You know you’re at the bottom when you no longer have the desire to make it, but life won’t let you go. There is still hope of rescue when physical death won’t rescue you.
I want to challenge you to reject self-pity. I know, at times, it has become your comfort. I know that self-pity carries a cheap hope that someone will see your eyes and do something to take your pain away. But, if someone can do that for you, then it alleviates your need for Jesus. Don’t do that. Don’t look to a person to do what only He can. I promise you, even though He feels like He’s keeping His distance, just like everyone else, He’s not. Your suffering is only for a moment in the big collection of moments.
Suffering from your own failure is aggressive because there is no relief to be found in guiltlessness. Guiltlessness doesn’t exist.
This is me offering a silent nod in your direction because I recognize where you are. I know how bad it hurts. But, more than knowing the suffering, I know the rest. I know what is coming and I have no doubt in your survival. I see your suffering as birth pains. You can’t rescue a woman from labor because you would take the new life away from her. Like a woman in labor, embrace the suffering with hope. Hope is the balm for the pain.
You’re not the only ones plunged into these hard times. It’s the same with Christians all over the world. So keep a firm grip on the faith. 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 5:9-11 MSG
Those of us who have been through it, like women who can recount every moment of childbirth, sit and marvel at the miracle. You don’t fully understand unless you’ve been through it, and those who have love to tell the story. You’re going to have your own story soon. You’ll be able to sit around a table of Thanksgiving with new meaning and new life. All the old that you thought was real will fade in comparison.
Will you do something today? I know you don’t feel like it, I know it seems useless, but will you bake something? Bake something as a testament to the fact that you’re still alive. Eat at a table even though some of the chairs are empty. They won’t always be empty. Bake a meal as a labor of hope. It lets the wolves know that they have not yet sucked every last drop of blood from your veins.
Take this promise from God and use it to get through the next few weeks. I know it hurts, but there is hope. I know this because I have seen it. He knows where you are, that you’re in exile. He knows that everything has been destroyed, and He knows how bad it hurts. He’s not leaving you there, He’s making something new. He’ll never leave you, even if everyone else does.
This exile is just like the days of Noah for me: I promised then that the waters of Noah would never again flood the earth. I’m promising now no more anger, no more dressing you down. For even if the mountains walk away and the hills fall to pieces,
My love won’t walk away from you, my covenant commitment of peace won’t fall apart.” The God who has compassion on you says so. -Isaiah 54:9-10 MSG
The God who has compassion on you says so.
Posted: November 14th, 2011 |
Filed under: God, life | Tags: faith, grace, purpose |
10 Comments »
“Beware of being obsessed with consistency to your own convictions instead of being devoted to God. If you are a saint and say, “I will never do this or that,” in all probability this will be exactly what God will require of you. … The important consistency in a saint is not to principle but to the divine life.” -Oswald Chambers
People believe more in a necessity that life be guided by religion than they do in the reality that life is guided by the Holy Spirit. God is asking these people to do something they said they would never do. They’re tormented right now because the choice won’t go away. God is trying to teach them to trust His voice, but they can’t make it line up with what they think. And so they’re tormented.
God told Ezekiel that he had to eat something that would religiously defile him. Ezekiel responded by saying, “Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I have never defiled myself (Ez 4:14).” God couldn’t possibly be asking him to do this. But, He was. There was a much bigger purpose for it than Ezekiel could see.
He had to let go of his religion in order to obey the God of his religion.
God told Balaam to go somewhere that was ‘forbidden’. Remember the story about Balaam’s donkey talking to him? Balaam was doing what God told him to do and an angel stood like a road block on the path. The angel called Balaam’s journey ‘perverse’ and said that God was angry. But…God told him to go. It made no sense. A donkey spoke, Balaam was a mess, and the angel ended the conversation by telling Balaam to continue the journey. Balaam had a job to do, though he didn’t know what it was yet. He had to trust God’s mercy and he stuck as close as he could to Him. (read Numbers 22)
I know the fear and trembling that blankets obedience.
Peter had a vision where He was asked by God to eat something that would religiously defile him. He responded by saying, “By no means, Lord…(Acts 10:14)” God taught Peter that life in Him is not about the ‘don’t's’ and the ‘musts’. It’s about His purpose for you, but you get used while you’re struggling with Him, so it’s hard to see the purpose until you can look back on it with some distance.
Every step is a choice and we struggle to never misstep with the wrong choice. You know when God is leading you down a path you said you would never travel and you remain where you are in misery. You have to see, in these stories, that God sometimes does lead people in directions that force you to rely on His mercy and His grace.
When you are in that place, your life is not your own.
You are completely dependent on Jesus. You are exactly where you are supposed to be when you move beyond yourself like that. It gets easier to trust Him the more you let go. It feels unmapped, but it’s not. When you get in there, the map you’ve been using all along starts to become a lot more clear. It doesn’t take long before you find yourself chasing trails all over the map like it’s all new again.
You have to let go of the idea of what your life should or was supposed to look like. Here and Now life happens and you don’t get to write it. It’s time to step beyond yourself and trust that He knows what He’s doing. In that life of complete dependance on Him, you’ll lose the ties that are binding you. Sometimes those ties are people, sometimes they’re something else. You will suffer loss, but it’s only to learn what it means to say:
“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”-Philippians 3:7-11
Posted: November 10th, 2011 |
Filed under: God, life | Tags: grace, poetry |
11 Comments »
They say only drink when you’re happy, but she uses her glass to take her way from Him.
One drink, it’ll taste better.
Two drinks, she’ll be fine.
Three drinks goes her judgment
Four drinks and she’s dialing.
Drunk is the stumble back to her heart.
Hate doesn’t exist without love and love is what she can’t make die.
What’s the point in life when you had what you couldn’t lose and lost it?
Question anesthetic became the truth serum and she’s a mess of herself.
One drink too many and she’s at His feet in Heaven’s version of a drunk dial.
When you don’t know where you’re going, you go where you know, and all she knows is Him.
She doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t want Him to know she’s there. Hand up to hide her breath, He’s on the other side of her doubt.
He’s quiet and she knows He knows. This is their ritual.
He doesn’t hang up. It’s the only way she comes to Him.
They say that He doesn’t want a drunk, but He’ll take her any way He can get her.
Her thoughts are stumbling, but she can still hum with the echo.
They say He wants her like she used to be, but He wants her like she is.
You can forget the words and remember the tune.
They say she’s never been further, but she’s right-here far away, not far-away right here.
She’s really lost, not pretend found. Closer than ever. Ugly truth becomes her.
A truth only a Father can love.
He’s the silence in the thunder when the storm rips her open. She runs when she’s sober, goes home when she’s drunk.
Passed out, she reaches for Him like a pillow.
They only want her clean.
Stripped down, she curls up in Him like a blanket.
and He’s the only one who will take her dirty.
Posted: November 4th, 2011 |
Filed under: God | Tags: grace, love wins |
25 Comments »
I had a dark childhood. I’ve lived and died a thousand times in this skin. But, by some miracle, I have always known that when I reach my hand up, His hand is there to take it. I have always been after the inner tug to the Something More. I can say with certainty that in spite of the brunt of life I had been served, I was meant for something more.
Knowing the damage that sexual abuse causes, I look at my children and something inside me leaps. They are unscathed by what scathed me. They are innocent and have no idea what kind of evil lurks in the dark spaces. I do everything I can to keep the predator of the innocent away from them.
I know what signs to look for. A predator tries to wedge in between the parent and the child. The predator befriends the family and waits to catch the little one alone. Innocence makes you trust. It’s all a game full of secrets and chances to be big. “You’re very mature for your age,” the predator hisses.
A cunning predator knows the right words. ”Your parents are just trying to control you.”
I know what signs to look for. A child is a streak of giggles across the room while the mother runs after her with her clothes. Reckless naked abandon and the parents laugh as the little legs scamper in play. It’s only when the child is ashamed of the nakedness and curious about things beyond their level of development that there is a problem. When shame replaces innocence and fear replaces play, the parent is gripped by a knowing they must push aside or confront. It’s a knowing that asks, “Who made you ashamed?”
Victims of sexual abuse blame themselves. They can think back to all the times that they were not careful, the times they ran around naked, and they think they brought it on themselves. The child remembers all the times they left themselves vulnerable. All the naked tumbles and what used to be innocent had become indecent. And they stop playing.
They hide from their parent out of distrust and feeling dirty. “I’ll wash myself. Leave! I’m naked.”
When we read the words of God in the Bible, they’re just printed words. The words are given life by what we believe. We animate them with what we know.
A predator came into the garden and caught Eve alone. He wedged himself between Eve and her Father. He made her believe that her Father was just trying to control her. “Do you want to be a grownup, Eve?”
“God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen3:5
Until then, she and Adam were a streak of giggles. They were innocent in reckless naked abandon. Their legs danced in play. But, when they ate, their eyes were opened and their memory was tainted in shame. They grabbed leaves to cover their nakedness and hid from their Father.
And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. (Gen3:8)
God called out to them. ”Where are you?” (Gen3:9)
They called out from their hiding place, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” (Gen3:10)
When shame replaces innocence and fear replaces play, the parent is gripped by a knowing they must push aside or confront. It’s a knowing that asks,
“Who told you that you were naked?” (Gen3:11)
The predator is a deceiver. He wedges himself between you and your Father. He tries to catch you alone because he is the molester of God’s children. He tries to make you feel ashamed of your freedom. He tries to take away your innocence. Every time you fall down, he humiliates you. He makes you doubt your Father and rely on him to take his condemning words back. He grooms you before he violates you. He vandalizes your trust in the Father so that you have nowhere to turn. He wants you to believe that you are damaged and alone. He wants to make a ghost town of your purity.
But look what God did for Adam and Eve. Their world had changed. They now knew what they shouldn’t have known. They stood before Him in tears as their flimsy coverings were not enough to hide what shamed them. But, God did not leave them embarrassed and vulnerable. He made them better clothes.
And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. (Gen3:20)
They should not have even known they needed clothes, but God did not torment them with what they could not change. He found them exactly where they were and provided what they should not have needed. He wanted them to feel decent again. Maybe if they feel decent, they won’t be afraid to be with Him.
God doesn’t give up on you and leave you to suffer your own damage. He takes care of you, even when it was you who caused the destruction.
Posted: November 1st, 2011 |
Filed under: life | Tags: grace, purpose |
7 Comments »
Every once in a while, if you’re paying attention, you will pass a particular window. You don’t know it’s different until you’re right up on it. It’s something familiar, but somewhere you’ve never been. It’s a window to a view that you are not typically privy to. What you see has the power to keep your thoughts, questions, or even subconscious ideas from going off on their own.
To some people, I am a woman they once knew who sinned and disappeared. But, I didn’t really disappear, I’m still here. I’m actually geographically closer to all of them than I was when I sinned. But,that’s beside the point. I am this woman who sinned so big that they either pretend to not know me when they see me, or they find a way to make sure that I know I disgust them.
Or, at least that’s the way it was during the first three years after. Now they don’t know me. And I either never see any of them or I don’t recognize them when I do. I don’t know them either. We’re all different people now.
So here we are with a lot of distance between then and now, me and them, but I still think about them once in a while. Memory is a funny thing and I know this. I know that if our parting words left me with a negative feeling, it will taint the older memories and rob them of their purity. I really have to fight the demonizing of all of my memories with them. It is the human mind’s way of surviving their loss and nurturing my self-worth. It’s psychology.
So, I set myself up to fail at making demons of people who are done with me. I have a coffee mug that an old friend gave me for Valentine’s Day. It’s probably twelve-years-old and is chipped in a few places. Most people, when they have a falling out with a friend, will get rid of the things that remind them of the other person. But, I kept this mug. It keeps the facts as they are and not as my mind would make them. When I drink out of that mug, and it’s in the regular mug rotation, I think of who we were together when she gave it to me. My mind has already started to make her fade into a loss I can survive, but the mug reminds me of the innocence we used to have.
So, back to the window…
I was speaking at a conference last weekend when I met someone I had, until then, only talked to through emails. I immediately liked her. She had this dance in her eyes that let me know her sense of humor and my sense of humor were going to be great friends.
I’m not sure how it happened, but our conversation went from funny one-offs to her telling me a serious story about a woman who hurt her deeply. It was a woman whose sin looked a bit like mine. As I watched her talk, her idiosyncrasies started to look exactly like one of my old friends. Her pauses, the way her forehead moved with her emotion…. And then this window made itself known.
Everything she was saying was the same thing that people say about me. The pain, the betrayal, and even putting words to the unknown. Remember how I said that people’s minds alter information to increase the survival of their heart? She was on the others side of my story, telling me about her pain. I was who I am to my old friends and who I was to her at the same time. Who I was to her was sipping a glass of wine with her, who I am to them was peeking through the window as they had a conversation about me.
I think we both were peering through a window to see a view we’re not usually privy to.
Posted: October 26th, 2011 |
Filed under: life | Tags: grace |
8 Comments »
...why should my liberty be determined by someone else’s conscience? -1 Corinthians 10:29 ESV
It’s human nature to worry about what others think of you. You want to fit in, to be above question, and to prove your value. Conformity is a big issue in sociology. It is vital to survival at nature’s core. Prejudice and discrimination are bred from the threat of those who are different. A wild animal is less likely to harm one of its own kind. It’s the animals who are different that have to establish their place on the food chain. You either eat or be eaten.
It’s a survival tool and humans can be animalistic when their survival is threatened. Whether it is acknowledged or not, if someone is different, something inside of us tells us they are a threat.
People believe that their way is right. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be there. They would still be searching. Nobody is completely right. We should all be searching. A hound dog on a hot trail that never ends. There is no way to have this all figured out. Even if you stack your knowledge upon all of the accumulated knowledge from the beginning of time, you would still not have enough to stop searching.
In this journey of gaining knowledge, the further you get, the further you have to go. You either enter the infinite or you don’t. Those who think they have it all figured out have not been swept off their feet, robbed of their finalities, or had a glimpse of the infinite. They have only one step to take, belief. Real belief. There is nothing more effective than to have to watch the things you once had faith in shatter. Everything but the primary level of faith is reduced to tradition. After that, it’s a whirlwind of immeasurable openness and endless territory.
Your liberty is not limited by someone else’s conscience.
God blesses everything you give thanks for.
For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. -1 Timothy 4:4
That’s sixth-day-Genesis talk. God looked over all that He had made and He called it ‘good’. If you’re thanking God, then you’re praying.
The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. -Romans 14:6
Everything made by God is good. You make it bad by the way you treat it. This is why you can’t look at someone else and use your own conscience to guide him. He is guided by his own conscience. This calls for respect for differences, not division.
It would be both bad manners and bad spirituality to cross-examine your host on the ethical purity of each course as it is served. -1 Corinthians 10:27 MSG
It’s ‘bad spirituality to cross-examine’ people as though a single one existed without God with them. When you see another, you should see God. They might not see Him, but you should. If you can’t see God in another, then you can’t love them. You have a plank in your eye. You’ll blind them trying to get the splinter out of theirs.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. -Matthew 5:8
The ‘pure in heart’ can see God.
To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure… -Titus 1:15
Posted: September 14th, 2011 |
Filed under: God, life | Tags: grace, purpose |
15 Comments »
“Crisis always reveal a person’s true character.” - Oswald Chambers
It’s completely normal to start panicking when the house of cards falls down. You were so proud of yourself with all that balance and mad skills of engineering and near catastrophe avoidance. Enough success can make anyone hone their slick moves in the dance of ‘Yay!’.
But when the cards fall and the mess is made, we kick the table and remove our party hats. Back to being a ‘nobody’ and questioning our purpose. It’s the moment of failure when you realize that your faith was in yourself and now you don’t know how to get back to the faith that was pure.
The only pure faith is that which is in Jesus and all He is.
For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.-1 Corinthians 3:11
God sends the storm to show you what you’re made of. He does it on purpose. He’s not trying to crush you, He’s trying to show you where you’re looking. If you’re not looking at Him, you need to know it and this is the best way to do it. All He’s trying to do is get you to see Him, to see your need for Jesus, and to get you to stop relying on how good you are at doing what He called you to do. If you’ve been called to do something, thinking you can do it, He’s going to let you know how incapable you are.
For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. -Romans 11:32
He makes sure you know what failure is. He does this so you know His mercy. It’s the only way to get you to stop relying on yourself to be who you’re supposed to be.
…it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. -1 Corinthians 3:13
If you’re relying on yourself, then all pieces of ‘you’ that are giving you strength will be burned up. There is nothing like a little dose of humility to keep you strong.
Failure is not proof that you were not or are no longer a Christian. See this is where the revelation of where your faith takes place. Faith in the ability to not fail will be met with the destruction of that faith.
- How do you forgive yourself? See what God is trying to show you.
- How do you ‘love’ the one who failed? See what God is trying to show you and them.
He’s bringing you out of superficial faith in Jesus and making it perfectly clear. Your need for Him and your inadequacy are all revealed while your faith is realigned to where it should be.
If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. -1 Corinthians 3:14
The reward is that you get to keep what was built right. You get to keep what wasn’t false.
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.” -Jesus in Matthew 7:24-25
The ‘words’ that Jesus is talking about come right before that verse. They are:
- judge the same way you want to be judged (verse 1-2)
- get the chunk of wood out of your own eye so you can see to remove the splinter from someone elses (verse 3-5)
- don’t waist your time on people out for their own gain (verse 6)
- rely on Jesus for what you need to fulfill what He asks (verse 7-11)
- do to others what you want done to you (verse 12)
- get life only from Jesus, not from how great you are (verse 13-14)
- beware of people who preach religion without the grace of Jesus. you know them by their love (verse 15-20 and John 13:34-35)
- be aware that not everybody who claims to know Jesus and does great things in His name are actually known by Him (verse 21-23)
This is what ‘a wise man’ builds his life on. Jesus is the rock. If you build your life of faith on those words, then, when the storms of life come, you will still have something left. That’s your reward.
“And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” -Jesus in Matthew 7:26-27
He’s not concerned with pushing you out, He wants you to get it right. He’s going to strum the strings that are out of tune, not to shame you, but to show you where you need some tuning.
If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. -1 Corinthians 3:15
Failure is an out of tune string. How will you know it’s out of tune unless you play it?
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? -1 Corinthians 3:16
He LOVES you! He’s making His home in you. He’s making you able to stand when life tries to knock you down.
If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.-1 Corinthians 3:17
He won’t let anyone destroy you. He’ll destroy them first. If you condemn another and destroy their faith you become an enemy to God. Remember, faith is not in self, it is in Jesus. Remind them of Jesus, not themselves.
God is the protector of all He owns, ready to fight for you when you’re under attack.
“Sing about a fruitful vineyard: I, the LORD, watch over it; I water it continually. I guard it day and night so that no one may harm it. I am not angry. If only there were briers and thorns confronting me! I would march against them in battle; I would set them all on fire.” -Isaiah 27:2-4 NIV
But, He doesn’t want to fight. He wants you ALL. Both the wise and unwise. The attacked and the attacker. God’s love goes far beyond the mistakes of humans.
“Or else let them come to me for refuge; let them make peace with me, yes, let them make peace with me.” -Isaiah 27:5 NIV
God loves you and because of that, He makes sure that you are not a crippled mess of half-baked religion and misguided faith. Sooner or later, we’ll learn the Truth no matter what we do. Everything is His, everything marked with the stamp of ‘Redemption’. Use your light of faith, your ‘saltiness’ to bring out the God flavors. You belong to Him. Take your lessons and grow into the art of beauty and let love drip from the fruit of your life.
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, ”He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again,”The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether …the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. -1 Corinthians 3:18-23
Posted: September 11th, 2011 |
Filed under: life | Tags: grace |
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grace is forgiveness, but not just forgiveness.
grace is empowering and powerful, but it’s not just power.
grace costs everything and it’s free.
grace is freeing, but it’s not cheap.
grace is favor.
favor is
- approval
- preference
- bias
- partiality
Grace is God saying: I approve you, I prefer you, I am biased toward you, I am partial to you.
God pours His grace out because He wants you. He made an excuse for you. He set things up so that you could win.
You ask Him to forgive you and He’s an infinite number of steps ahead of you.
While sin cripples you, grace gives you the power to run without the handicap.
You have to deny your own common sense and sense of justice, thereby denying yourself, to really grasp just a hint of the complexity of grace.
When you know that you can’t lose, then you’ll play the game because you enjoy it. There is no pressure, there is no competition, there is no getting kicked out, and there is only one MVP. Jesus in on your team.
He died to keep you there. There is no way He’s letting you go. He wants you to play.
Now go get back out there.
A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. -Proverbs 17:22
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