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.

Fall into His heart

Read James 1.2-25

Ever have those times when you feel like doing nothing but crying? Times when you hardly want to get out of bed and have no energy to do anything, let alone prayer or reading the Bible. You know those times when every door seems to close, every way seems to be darkened and everybody seems to have turned their back to you?

Times when even God seems distant and unloving and you actually wonder if He even sees you…

Strange truth of faith is that through our trials we find growth, because we find Him… 

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (vs. 2-4).

Joy? How so? Because such trials have a way of pressing us to go deeper with God. When we are brought to our knees we see fresh truths about God intersecting with our lives in the hardest of times. When we fall to our knees so as to cry out to His heart we realize what David did: “He sent from on high, He took me…He rescued me,” –and here is the best part—“because He delighted in me” (Psalm 18.6-19).

How many of us, when we cry out to Jesus, realize that He has entered into our suffering with us, broken down the barriers of sin and eradicated death so as to reach out and rescue us because He delights in us?

In our trials we are not expected to fall back on our own power, control or resources. No, Jesus wants us to embrace the Spirit so as to “rely not on (myself) but on God who raises the dead” (2 Cor 1.9).

All Jesus wants is for us to fall into His heart so that He can take care of us.

There in our suffering and through our trials Jesus says to us, “I want you to have peace. I want you to be deeply joyful. I want you to believe in what I say and what I do — to have unshakable faith. I want you to have the kind of peace that I give, not the world. The kind of joy that I give, not the world. The kind of faith, I give, not the world. I want you to have the truth of love and the truth of faith—I want you to have Me.”

Do you want Jesus? Then go to Him, embrace Him and receive His love…Amen Jesus!

Choose Joy

Read Psalm 100; John 15.1-11

All around people struggle to find happiness. I know I get caught up in this battle. But what I have come to find is that I am not in search of happiness, but joy…And He is right there before me.

Truth is, there is a difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is usually something on the surface—it comes and goes with our feelings. But joy…joy is different. It is deeper. It is alive and in our soul.

One of my favorite authors, Henri Nouwen once wrote:

“Joy is not the same as happiness. We can be unhappy about many things, but joy can still be there because it comes from the knowledge of God’s love for us…Often we discover the joy in the midst of the sorrow. I remember the most painful times of my life as times in which I became aware of a spiritual reality much larger than myself, a reality that allowed me to live the pain with hope. I dare even to say: ‘My grief was a place where I found joy.’ Joy does not happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to Jesus and have found in Him our refuge and our safety, and that nothing, not even death, can take Him away from us.”

Yes, unlike happiness, joy is essential to spiritual life. When we are not joyful we cannot bear fruit. Jesus calls us to Himself so that His joy may become ours and that our joy may become complete…if only we go to Jesus.

Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing — sickness, failure, emotional distress, wandering, oppression, doubt, war, or even death — can take that love away.

Right now (you may need to find a “secret” place) let yourself celebrate joy…let yourself celebrate Jesus. Stand up, dance around, sing out, throw your hands up in the air, laugh uncontrollably, fall to your knees, cry profusely… whatever you need to do to celebrate heaven’s joy, do it. 

Right now forget formalities and normalcy. 

Right now enter into the joyous praise from Mercy Me and let this beautiful song fill your heart… Greater.

Right now embrace the Spirit and choose Joy by stepping into the crazy insane love of Jesus and celebrating His undeniable love for you. Amen Jesus!

In His Silence

Read Matthew 27.46; Romans 5.1-11

The weekend begins with the brutal, tragic, and paradoxically beautiful death of Jesus Christ. And then there is silence...

It is almost as if time stands still - everyone staring at the limp, beaten and broken body on the Cross. And then they watched as the body is taken down, placed in a tomb and left alone.

Everyone—followers of Jesus, haters of Jesus, those wondering who Jesus was—everyone sat in silence. They could do nothing but wait. And so they did: wait, wonder, hope. Is He the Christ, the Messiah? Or is He nothing more than a false promise, a dream breaker, hope wrecker?

The deafening sound of Saturday’s silence should be a day of contemplation for followers of Christ… Who is this man called Jesus? And what does He want with me?

Truth is, the sound of Saturday's silence is the rumbling of love that explodes from the empty cross of Sunday. It is the sound of the One who abandoned His throne so as embrace us in His arms of love. Saturday’s silence should remind us that the King of Heaven became the least of these so as to usher us into His joy...if only we embrace the silence.

What if today we started living the hope of tomorrow by praying for the world? What if we filled the silence with the sound of our prayers?

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 shadow of the cross so as to transform the tragedy into a beautiful wedding feast? What if today we stepped into the silence so as to step out into the noise of the world and begin living out the hope of heaven today?

Take a moment and listen to the words from Downhere as they remind us of the truth that Christ was born to save a world torn apart.  

Let us step into the sound of Saturday's silence so that the eruption of Sunday's glorious love will explode from our words, our actions, our lives! Let us embrace the One King who poured out His heart for you and me…

His Passion

Read Hebrews 12.1-2, 28-29

What a week we enter into… Some may point to March for its madness of basketball, but for anyone who loves Jesus, March 2016 finds its madness in this week.

This week is known as Passion week. It is the week that all who love Jesus are freed from the bondage of sin, released from the darkness of evil and elevated to the throne of heaven as they are embraced by the amazing love of the One nailed to the cross.

The cross is the place where the grace of Christ’s kingdom meets with and overcomes the lost state of the kingdom of the world. This week we enter into the shadow of the cross where we find forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation…Amazing Love.

Only love justifies the suffering, only love’s suffering justifies the terrible distress of the world. Only His passion has the power to overcome our pain, darkness and fear. Only His passion offers everything we need…

Let us this week wrestle with the passion of the Christ so as to erupt with the insane love of Jesus. Let us this week wrestle for the passion of the Christ so as to become the insane love of Jesus for the sake of the world. Let us wrestle on the inside with His grace so that our lives might become His grace on the outside. Let us this week seek to offer our hearts to the One who offered His life.

Take a moment and listen to David Crowder’s Here’s My Heart and as you do, ask the Spirit to awaken your heart to the truth of this week...

Open your hearts, open His word and enter into His passion…Amen Jesus!