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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.

love

When a fellow believer sins, you can either see him as damaged goods, or you can see your friend on the battle field who just got shot. You can turn your ’sword’ on him and tell him that his sin messed up the entire operation or you can use the ’sword’ to protect him from anymore shots.

‘…the sword of the Spirit …is the word of God. -Ephesians 6:17

If our salvation is our faith, then what we believe is under attack. Any time you come to a point where you doubt that someone can be forgiven, you know you’re believing propaganda that was put out by the enemy to weaken our forces. If your faith in Jesus saves you, your doubt in Jesus destroys you.

You’re out on the field… what do you believe? If God is who He says He is, then this is no accident, there is a greater purpose for it. Ultimately that purpose is for Jesus to be reflected in you. This is where it gets real. Who is Jesus? The Accuser or the Savior?

Love: put yourself in the other person’s position. Look at your fallen brother and switch places with him. Don’t try to imagine what he may be thinking or feeling, there’s too much detachment. Try to imagine what you would be thinking or feeling. If you think you would never do what he did, then stop right there. If you can’t put yourself in the other person’s position, then you are not capable of Love. You’re worthless.

Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. -John 13:35

Anyone who doesn’t love is as good as dead. -1 John 3:14

My friend, Keri, told me a story about a girl who went to her high-school named Erin. Erin was a Christian. People loved and respected her. When Keri found out Erin was pregnant, she was bombarded with a mixture of emotions. It was confusing to watch someone, who seemed to have it together, fall. It hurt to be let down and it made Keri angry. Especially because Erin knew better. Keri watched as people, both Christians and non-Christians, began to distance themselves from Erin. She struggled with her own emotions and wondered how she should treat her. How does one Christian respond to another who has been caught in life-changing sin?

Keri prayed about it and that night she had a dream. Her dream changed her forever and answered the tough questions about how to handle someone who has fallen.

She dreamt that it was her. – Preface: ‘Grace Is For Sinners’

Jesus switched roles with us. Love in evidence. If you want to know how to respond to someone who sins, imagine if you did that. You as you are. You did that. How does it feel? What do you need? Do you need to be told you were wrong? Do you need to be told you were right? Are you doubting your ability to be forgiven? On the battle ground, that is exactly what’s at stake. Your faith.

smoking gun

As Christians, there is one faith. The crux of our faith is that Jesus is who he says he is, did what he came to do and when he was finished, he said so.

He didn’t come to condemn us, the law does that already. He didn’t come to teach us how to live, he came to give us life.

Every generation has it’s time of wandering off from the truth and a fight to get back to it. We’re all taking our turn in the cycle. As long as we’re human beings, we’ll behave like human beings.The plight of a human is our aspiration to survive. We don’t even have to survive all that well.

The child who suffers abuse will begin to kill off the parts off her that make her wish for death when she is being hurt. This is how she survives. She learns to cauterize herself so she doesn’t have to be aware of what is happening to her. These children learn how to survive by living half dead. They don’t even know that’s what they’re doing until the inevitable ache to be whole comes around again. The miraculous tsunami of life tries to push through the scarred over wound.

I see the church that way. The innocence of truth has been manhandled and violated in the secret places and we’re spitting out half-dead spiritual children. Those children are wandering the streets chasing ribbons and ice cream with their dead eyes and bedridden hearts. They are our ache to be whole. Their cries echo behind the hollow laughter. Their songs and games are pinging off the hollow grave.

All the places we thought were dead are pounding on the coffin from the inside. The miraculous tsunami of life is pushing through the six feet of dirt. They will take the stand and have their voice heard. It’s time to listen. It’s time to sift through the religious clutter and root out the abuse and call out the abusers. 

I would march against them in battle; I would set them all on fire. Or else let them come to me for refuge; let them make peace with me, yes, let them make peace with me.” – Isaiah 27:4-5

The goal is for all of us to be one. One heart and one mind. The goal is for us to know our Father. Even the abusers are called to take refuge in God.

There is an enemy who pits us against each other. He uses the things we love, the things we want and the things we think we deserve. He’s cunning, he convinces us that it’s our duty as ‘Christians’ to maintain our position of opposition.

If God’s desire is for us to know him, then how far do you think he’ll go to get us to that place? Is anything off limits to the Creator of the universe? We’re all playing roles in God’s drama of his salvation power. We play into his plan like characters in a book. If we think we’re in control, that it’s our choosing or our sacrifice, then you may want to consider where God is in all that? God is not a puppet being pulled by your tempermental strings. You have your choices, but have you ever considered who is giving you the choices?

Human beings are delusional in their ego-centric god complexes. How do you think we ever come to a place of absolute submission to God? It’s by becoming aware of our matrix so we can catch glimpses of the unfathomable through the cracks of ourselves. How do you become aware of your cracks? 

What God does and what God allows is beyond us and still for us. He is the author and we are his creations.

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

Is that grounds for complaining that God is unfair? Not so fast, please. 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. The same point was made when God said to Pharaoh, “I picked you as a bit player in this drama of my salvation power.” All we’re saying is that God has the first word, initiating the action in which we play our part for good or ill. – Romans 9:14

Some of us need to have our self-righteousness leveled and some of us need to have our self-sufficiency removed in order to see who God is and who we are in relation to him and to each other. 

Jesus prayed for us right before he went to the Garden of Gethsemane. In his prayer, he asked God to help us fight to stay united. 

The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, So they might be one heart and mind with us. Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me. The same glory you gave me, I gave them, So they’ll be as unified and together as we are— I in them and you in me. Then they’ll be mature in this oneness, And give the godless world evidence That you’ve sent me and loved them In the same way you’ve loved me. – Jesus; John 17:20-23

The evidence of your faith is not found in your stand pertaining to sin. Even unbelievers can agree with your sentiment on morality. The proof of Jesus’ message is in the the eating. The smoking gun of our faith is love.