New Wine Uncorked: Jesus & Thanksgiving - Is anything or anyone worthy o...

The goodness of dialogue is made even sweeter by the company one keeps. In this episode of New Wine Uncorked, Phil, Kayla, and I are joined by the one and only Granny! Yes, my mom and Kayla’s Granny, Lisbeth Farlow joins the New Wine dialogue that takes us into the lush fields of thanks and giving. What does the Jesus follower have to be thankful for? Is it the message? Is it the person?

New Wine Uncorked- The Truth of Love: You, Me and being the Be-loved

Am I loveable? Are you loveable? According to the Christian Scripture, the answer is a resounding YES! But is it so inside of me? Do I believe that I am the beloved of the Creator of all things? More than this, do I believe you are His beloved? 

In this episode of New Wine UnCorked, Jim, Kayla, and Matt step into the dialogue of faith and life by examining the truth of divine love. What does it mean to be unconditionally loved, and how should this impact my life and the way and the who I love? Does the love of Christ compel me at all? Or have I become numb to heaven’s embrace of love?

New Wine Uncorked - Community and Individuality: The Truth of the One an...

What does it mean to be a player on the world's stage? And what of this idea of being a player in God's drama of salvation? 

In this episode of New Wine UnCorked, Phil, Matt, and Jim enter into the dialogue of faith and life by examining the truth of our created community. That is, if it is true that the human is created in the image of a God who is relational, what then are the implications for life, for church, for our engagement of the world? How does the Christian dialogue with the world without being tainted by the world? How do we recognize and realize our place on the world's stage so to enact our own faithful performances? 

 Dialogue is the truth of participation as dia via Latin from Greek dia-logos invokes a participatory conversation. It is interactive. From dia "through" + legein "speak." Going through the Word so to engage through our word, Phil, Jim, and Matt seek to uncork the impossible possibility of the human and our pursuit of this Uncommon God so to realize our common good. 

 Recorded live on Friday’s at 10am (pst) New Wine UnCorked seeks to step into culture with a heart bent towards engagement, reconciliation, and relationship.

Lovely is...

On the cross Jesus’ final breath was breathed out so that we might breathe in His life.
His last words were meant for us...

“It is finished.” 

No longer is there any chasm, any separation between the Creator and the created, for when Love was nailed to the cross the world witnessed how lovely is death.

And in our witness of death’s beauty, we experience how lovely is life. No longer does death have the sting of victory for in Jesus’ lovely death we are set free to realize how lovely is life.

As we celebrate the glory of Easter contemplate these two truths:

Lovely is death. In Jesus' death perfect love overwhelms the darkness of fear, the darkness of pain, the darkness of anxiety... the darkness of sin. For in His death we meet love, for He is love and “perfect love casts out fear.” Lovely is the death of the One who is love for through His death we are baptized in His glory so that we might “walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4).

Lovely is death is the truth of all those who “lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely” so that we might be consumed by Jesus, “the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:1-2).

Lovely is life. The joy of the cross is rooted in its destruction of our death so that through the death of Christ we might become baptized into the loveliness of life. Through the Spirit our hearts are awakened so that in hearing His voice we might truly live (Jn 5:25).

Lovely is life is the truth of all those who believe in Christ that “though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die” (Jn 11:25-26). For in Christ and through the Spirit, we are more than conquerors because in His death we become “the resurrection and the life.”

Only when we see how lovely is death can we experience how lovely is life. Only when Easter is lived through Christmas and Christmas through Easter can and will the Church become the eruption of hope bursting forth from the empty tomb! Amen Jesus! Tweet

Heaven is here...Do we hear?

Yesterday felt like an earthquake with the murder of God... 

And now... the deafening silence of Saturday...

The sound of Saturday's silence is the rumbling of love. A love bursting from the seams... waiting for Sunday's explosion.

But until then, the silence is powerful. The fear palpable. The angst overwhelming. And yet, in the midst of the silence, the tomb is calling out -- do you hear?

Today - as it always has - humanity is crying out for the hope of the empty tomb. And this year, the church needs to celebrate with bold-faced print, heart-filled streams, and tenacious prayers, heaven's hope.

That is, the Church needs to make clear the Kingdom of heaven is here... Do we hear?

What if today we “trust in the name of the Lord” so that we might “rise and stand upright?” What if today we who love the Lord, “shout for joy” by rising and standing upright by praying for the world today? (Ps20) 

What if the prayers of our heart were filled with the blood drops of Jesus?

What if we filled the silence (isolation) with the sound of our prayers?

As long as we live we should pray and pray unceasingly. Today is a gift from God for in His silence He speaks boldly, asking us, how will we respond to the actions of Christ? 

Will we step into the beautiful paradox that erupts from the cross? Will we step into the silence with the powerful and joyful noise of our prayers? Will we be the prayer song for the world to hear?

The Crux

Through Christ we come to realize that our restless heart understands itself only if it comes to understand true reality. Such reality that is only experienced through the love offered by the divine heart that breaks for us upon the Cross. It is a love that was broken wide open on that rugged cross so as to be poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5.5).

Truth is, our hearts are in need of a revival. Each of us needs to be reminded not only who we are, but why were we created - or better yet, the purpose of our personhood. And this is why we need Jesus…

Jesus is the crux of Christianity—He is the core of our faith, the foundation of salvation—He is the Christ. However, many today balk at the aforementioned. Sure we are willing to accept Christ as being a “good teacher,” but as the Son of God, the salvation of humanity, our actions (and our words) hardly support anything other than a belief that to be a Christian is to simply memorize Scripture, follow rules and do good deeds. But being a disciple of Christ is so much more…

Throughout the Bible we witness the truth that God is love. And in this truth we come to know the beauty of His mercy. To know Christ is to know love so as to experience His merciful love. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:

The mercy and love of God are at work even in the midst of his enemies.  It is the same Jesus Christ, who of his grace calls us to follow him, and whose grace saves the murderer who mocks him on the cross in his last hour.

Yes Jesus was and is a “great teacher,” but to keep Him only as such is to place Him in a human constructed box. When Jesus took on flesh He became mercy for us. To know Christ is to know mercy. To know mercy is to be mercy, which as Paul writes, is to participate or fellowship in Christ’s sufferings and His death. Being precedes doing.

Christ’s love and mercy know no bounds. He loves friend and foe, and He calls us to do the same. When we know Christ, we know salvation and from such knowing our hearts experience the revival from His love poured out by the Holy Spirit. It is a love that elevates us from being simply observers of His life to the extraordinary place of participants in His truth.

We are called to fellowship in Christ’s sufferings and conform to His death – this is what it means to workout our salvation; this is what it means to participate in Christ’s performance. We are called to be mercy, compassion, and most of all, love. This is what it means to be a player and participant in God’s drama.

So Loved...

How do we really know that God loves us?

Have you asked Him?

This weekend we witness how much love has been poured out on our behalf...

This weekend the tragedy of Friday, the silence of Saturday and the awakening of Sunday should erupt in joyful jubilation as we remember just how much we are loved. Oh yes, we are so loved...


So why not right now stop…take a knee and ask…Ask the Spirit to speak to your heart. Ask Him to destroy, remove, crush any obstacles that are hindering you from hearing the voice of the Crucified King as He hangs there on that rugged tree. Ask the Spirit to touch the eyes of your heart…

“Then He touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith be it done to you.’ And their eyes were opened” (Matt 9.29-30).

We will only see when we are blinded by grace. When we turn to the cross so as to embrace the silence, the surrender, the solitude, the strength, the beauty of this weekend. 


In our embrace of His heart, that was drained for us on that cross, we lose the dead weight of selfishness so as to gain the greatness of Savior. And when we are engulfed in the greatness of Savior we realize the greatness of ourselves.

We realize that to be in His image is to be extraordinary, it is to be the deed and truth of love. For when we recognize the staggering reality of this weekend, we realize the truth of how much we are so loved...

So go ahead, ask Jesus how much He loves you. Ask the Spirit to open your heart so you might truly see. And when you open the eyes of your heart, you will find the divine hand of love stretched out so that it might embrace your heart and softly whisper, 

“My child for this I have waited, for this I came. To receive you into my arms, broken, lifeless, dead to self so that I might cover you in My love, fill you with the Holy Spirit and raise you up into our divine heart so that now you might finally realize you are so loved.”

Who am I

Today we are experiencing an identity crisis... On so many different levels... Yet the question that faces each of us might not be the most obvious one...

We want to believe the essential question of identity is the one asked by Mr. Vernon (Breakfast Club), when he required the fab 5 to write an essay addressing the question "Who am I?" And indeed, who we think we are is important, but not the most essential question...

Jesus, not Vernon, gives to us the essential question of identity when He asks, "Who do you say I am?"

And so how do you respond...

Truth is, who you say Jesus is answers who you think you are. For when you answer who Jesus is you answer the question of identity.

To say Jesus is insignificant or simply a nice guy or great teacher is to say that identity rests within the realm of the human. That is, that identity is based solely on what you do, and who you believe you are. It is an identity self-created, self-supported and independent of all outside forces; it is a worldly identity based on us and nothing supernatural. 

But to say Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the Creator of all things, The Christ is to acknowledge that identity is realized only through the supernatural. That is, to fully recognize Jesus' divine reality is to fully recognize the fullness of our human reality. For when speaking of identity in Christ we are not speaking of a loss of identity; quite the opposite. Identity in Christ is the awakening of identity. To be identified in Christ ultimately means to be conformed to Him. Yes, identity in Christ is conformity to Christ. 

To be identified by Christ is to be conformed to His way, truth and life, in and through the Holy Spirit. To be identified with Christ is to be wedded to His mission. That is, “yes” to Christ is "yes" to being stretched to our breakthrough... A breaking through to His transformative movement. Saying YES to Jesus is saying yes to being immersed in the revelation of His radical love. A love that ignites the heart so as to saturate it in the mystery of our home-coming—the final return home, into the heart of the One who is love…

So question is, have you found your identity by answering the question of "Who do you say I am?"

Podium Participant

Transformation...

Such a wonderfully sexy word, concept, slogan...

So what is transformation? In the midst of the "olympic world" right now, transformation seems to be akin to one who was 4th in 2012 but worked hard so as to become "transformed" over the last 4 years into a "podium" participant.

But is this really what transformation is? Nothing more than behavior modification? Is the podium participant truly transformed? What happens after the podium? Truth is, the podium is not the epitome of transformation - at least not in the realm of faith...

When speaking from a Christo-centric perspective, transformation takes on eternal significance because it is rooted in the way, the truth, and the life of the One who came to transform our hearts, our souls, our whole humanity... He came to transform so we might go and act...

Truth is, Jesus was intentional in His act of transformation. That is, He came to us - to you and me - so as to invite us into His eternal act of love. And if and when we say yes, we find that in Christ transformation is real.

Participating in the will of God occurs when through the Holy Spirit, Christ becomes the pattern of our life, when He becomes our first love. As Paul writes:

“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph 5.1-2).

A life that has this world as its first love seeks peace and hope in the comforts of the world. But a life in love with Jesus stands in stark contrast to a life lived in love with the world. For the truth of the Christian faith is that peace and hope are only found in the One who is peace, the One who is hope.

When He is our hope we can step into everyday and see it as an opportunity to be intentional in how we love the other. That every moment is an opening to be love.

And how do we become love so as to be love? We follow in the way of the Master Builder who told us, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.”

We become love by building up the other through our intentional acts of love. Moments that will open up into amazing encounters that allow us to invest in the heart of our community by investing in the hearts of the other.

Truth is, this world is in need of more people who seek to elevate the other rather than tearing them down. Daily each one of us should strive to be a servant who seeks the betterment of society. Daily each one of us can make a difference through our intentional acts of service. For when we seek to serve the other, we live out the truth of being love. And in our intentional acts of love, grace, compassion, mercy, and justice erupt and overflow so as to begin transforming the landscape of this great nation of ours.

Let us this day be love by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, housing the homeless, welcoming the stranger, and freeing the enslaved. Let us this day step off the podium and become transformation by lavishing our love on the other...

Transformation begins with the heart…it begins with you…

Our Need

Read Psalm 46

Have you ever gone through a period when life is heavy? When the air you breathe seems so suffocating? When such times wrestle us down, how do we escape so as to step onto the victor’s stand?

Well let me tell you, it is not by your might or by your power… Our peace, our joy, our laughter will only come when we actually stop fighting. Believe it or not, it is only when we finally lay down so as to look up that we will be overcome with the tears that flowed from the cross on our behalf.

Jesus came, was beaten and nailed to the cross so that He might be our refuge in the time of trouble. He gave His life for us and to us and everyday the Holy Spirit cries out to us to let go and let Jesus become our need.

Jesus as our need… reminds me of Matt Maher’s beautiful song. Take a moment a listen to Lord,I Need You and as you do, close your eyes and open your hearts. Ask the Holy Spirit to make Jesus your all in all so that in everything you need you turn to Jesus. For when you do you will find that it is He who will suffocate the pain and heaviness of life so as to fill you up with the joy of His amazingly insane love!

What are you waiting for… Need Jesus and find your joy…