Awestruck Wonder

Read 1 Thessalonians 5.12-28

I am convinced that in order to be one who “rejoices always” we must be one who “prays without ceasing” so that in everything we will “give thanks.”

As Paul writes:
“Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (vs. 16-18).

Our call to rejoice and to pray are not suggestions, they are expectations. And why? Because Paul knows that when our hearts our consumed by prayer then all we experience, all we encounter awakens us to our need of Jesus, and in this need we come to realize His unceasing love. We come to recognize that in Christ and through the Spirit we are the beloved, that in Him we are given eternal joy. Such joy that wants nothing more than to give thanks to the One who transforms us into more than conquerors.

To give thanks in everything is the result of a heart of worship. It is the natural result of one who has come into the holy presence of Jesus. For when we cry out to the Holy Spirit to take us into the heart Jesus, our King of kings, we can do none other than rejoice always.

When our lives become a fountain of prayer our hearts overflow with the sweet eruption of hope and joy that spring forth from divine love poured out. For when we embrace the Holy Spirit so as to go deep into the heart of Christ, our lives become drenched in His love so that as Kari Jobe sings,

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
Holy, holy is He
Sing a new song to Him who sits on
Heaven's mercy seat”

Go and listen to Kari and let your heart be filled with awestruck wonder at the name of Jesus. Let us give our hearts to the One who was and is and is to come, through unceasing prayer. For such an offering is that which in Revelation is called “incense,” because, when it ascends to heaven, God smells the sweet savor of our hearts (Rev 5.8).

Oh let us bow down in prayer and sing with all creation the glory and wonder of our Lord. Let us embrace His love so that our lives might erupt in the truth of His joy. Amen Jesus!

Hand Sanitizer

Sometimes my mind wanders...Sure many will interject "Squirrel," here, but that is not the case for my wanderings. In the wanderings of my mind's eye I often times wonder, what does Jesus think about His Bride today? Who are we faithful to? His way or the world's way...

I am talking about a place where truth is truth. But we must ask, do we want the messy, unsanitized version of truth? What pains me is the thought that many in the church do not want Jesus' way and life of truth because such truth disrupts as is re-directs. It challenges as it transforms. It asks us daily, "who do you say I am?"

Instead of the truth of Jesus, we want a sanitized version - a Hippy Dude that walks around in Birkenstocks telling everyone "Hey man don't worry, be happy. The future is bright with optimism."

Is the Jesus being preached anywhere near the man from Nazareth? Do we preach Jesus so to become pious or are we too pious to even preach Jesus? Is what we are handing out as authentic faith simply another form of hand sanitizer…cleaning the outside while leaving the inside still dirty? Do we seek to satisfy the masses by telling them what they want to hear? Is the church leading culture or culture leading church?

I wonder if we are missing the Truth. Instead of wondering why people are the way they are, we need to seek to understand and love them. Instead of believing that love is love, we should be showing the world what it means to be bound to the insane love of Jesus - a love that sets the prisoner free, clothes the homeless and loves the sinner. A love that shines light upon the darkness so as to give us sight. G.K. Chesterton said: 

Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind.

Faith is dynamic - at least the Christian faith is because the God of Christianity is dynamic. Through the action of revelation, God - in Christ, through the Spirit - takes life, and as theologian Karl Barth illumines, 

sets it into crisis, shaking its false foundations, and bringing to bear upon it the very Goodness of God.

Through such a shaking, our faith and our theological endeavors can begin to understand the confrontation between Creator and creature; an inter-action whereby the creature is confronted by the mystery comparable only to the impenetrable darkness of death, in which God veils Himself precisely when He unveils, announces, and reveals to the human Himself and the crazy intensity of His love. Such love is what breaks the chains of oppression, shatters the power of death and breaks down the walls of division. This is the reality of Jesus' messy, unsanitized crazy insane love - a love that makes right what the darkness has disjointed, makes beautiful what sin has defiled. This is the insane love the world is in need of! 

What the world does not need is for the church to follow its lead. Nor does the world need more rhetoric and reasons it is wrong- what the world needs is more Jesus and more Love. What are you doing to give the world what it needs?

The “tude” of Righteousness

The News: what craziness this thing we call life is all about. Or maybe this is just the script we are attempting to write on our own?

Whenever I read the news I seem to ask myself: "Self (I like talking to myself, because I always have an attentive audience :0) what the heck does it mean to say I worship a Just God? Like Pilate I wonder what is truth, what is justice?" On Monday of this week, (Jan 21) the paradox of life could not have been more apparent: America inaugurates its first Black President for his second term and on the day this nation stops to celebrate the life a civil rights pioneer, the POTUS uses the very bible of the Rev Martin Luther King Jr to be sworn in by; on this day, a 15 year old boy kills 3 siblings and his parents; on this day 37 hostages are killed in Algeria; on this day the POTUS hails civil rights for "all" people - black, white, gay, straight - moving the discussion on to the road less traveled thus far; on this day the S&P 500 and Dow Jones both finished in the green (with earnings) while nearly 1.3 billion people got by on less than $1 for the day (hardly a gain); on this day millions went about life with hardly a thought of the "other"; on this day, I wonder what Jesus thinks about our nation, His church, me and my role in His drama of salvation?

So often I remain blind to the reality of the action on the world's stage. I become bent on the "tude" of self as opposed to the "tude" of the Savior (cf. Phil 2). The injustice I appear to face always has a way of eventually making me aware of the lack of justice all over the world. Bummer that I am so often blind to injustice until it lands smack on my doorstep! I live just as Alice in Chains song "Man in the box" sings:

I'm the man in the box
Buried in my crap
Won't you come and save me, save me

Lord, would you open my heart, my eyes, my ears so that I would be one who "hungers and thirsts for righteousness" (cf. Matt 5.5-10) so that I might be one who seeks to be a peacemaker thereby helping "justice roll down like a river, and righteousness, like a never-ending stream" (Amos 5.24).

In reading through the Beatitudes, I was awakened to how so often the Lord uses the so called "injustices" in my life to re-orientate my focus back to Him. There are real injustices that I neglect because I don't want to be inconvenienced by them, be challenged by them, or what's worse I don't want them to destroy my own comfort because in the end I am nothing more than self-focused. This is how Eugene Peterson translates Habakkuk 2.4: "Look at the man, bloated by self-importance--full of himself but soul-empty. But the person in right standing before God through loyal and steady believing is fully alive, really alive." Most of us understand or have heard this verse as "the just or righteous will live by faith."

A study of the four times this verse appears in the Bible sheds light on the attitude or the "tude" of the righteous. We have a choice in how we respond to life, the question we have to ask ourselves is what foundation will we build our responses on and from?

Helen Keller wrote:

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

For those who call themselves a follower of Christ, our character and our response to life is in light of His response to us, and this is not always easy nor does it often times lack pain and suffering, but we are called to respond to life as our Savior did, with joy and praise! We who follow the Crucified King are called to live out His insane love through actions that the world will see as being nothing more than pure insanity (cf. John 10.20). We are called to participate in His Eucharistic (self-giving) performance by and through our own self-giving (Eucharistic) performances. So as the author of Hebrews writes, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb 12.2). Let us live out the "tude" of righteousness as we live out the insane love of Jesus...

Dude Jesus you rock my world everyday! Thank you!