New Wine Uncorked: Trinitarian Soundings - God is Here…And?

#love #trinity #jesus #holyspirit #father #newwine #nwnws #trinitarian #faith #church

How does a Trinitarian, Christ-centered theology play out in how we see the “other”? Does it matter if one has a Trinitarian theology, and if so, why does this matter?

First things first. In my work as well as my writings, you will find me saying and promoting that theology not only matters, but each of us are theologians. And at New Wine, New Wineskins we believe that the call placed on the Christian is to participate with the Christian Godhead theologically, Biblicially, and Socially. Theology is faith seeking understanding and this is meant to be done both individually and communally.

Trinitarian theology recognizes God’s relational disclosure and seeks to frame our understanding of divine and human being in interpersonal and communal terms. Truth is, the Trinity is the paradigm by which we are to live. It is dynamic in relation; thus, God's being is His eternal, intrinsic communion. So what then of today? 

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

Trinitarian Soundings - The God of Relationship

#love #trinity #jesus #holyspirit #father #newwine #nwnws #trinitarian #epiphany 

Theology, the Trinity... Where do we even start? The discussion this morning flows from the truth of theology, specifically, Trinitarian theology. How does a Trinitarian, Christ-centered theology play out in how we see the “other”? Where the body of Christ gets it right and where it does not.

As the Christian Scriptures reveal, the human is created in the image of the Trinity – A Godhead that does not remain absent or quiet throughout the course of history. We are not talking about a God hidden behind divine revelation. Rather, God is for us fully revealed and fully concealed in His self-disclosure.

The Christian Scriptures calls the reader into transformation –conversion—which is not a static event, something that happens once in a lifetime, but a continual process of turning toward the Son, who leads us, in union with the Holy Spirit, into an ever-deepening relationship with the Father. Thus, we are brought into the very life of the Trinity, that communion of love without end. 

The Trinity is the paradigm by which we are to live. It is dynamic in relation; thus, God's being is His eternal, intrinsic communion. So what then of today? Are we relationally wired by the God of  creation or have we become machines programmed by our own hands?

 

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

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Who is this One they call Three? How do the many created relate this God who is Three in One?

I am one who appreciates stretching… Maybe not to the point of rupture, but close… One of, if not the greatest forms of stretching has come through my faith seeking understanding. It is a stretching brought on through the inquiry of who is this God celebrated at Christmas, elevated at Easter, awed by the multitude, and crucified by the many? Who is this God called Trinity and why follow Him? Is it more profitable, more comforting, more secure to follow the one they call Christ, or should I continue on my own way, forging ahead on my own, self-made path?

Stepping into the dialogue of faith and life happens through a multitude of ways, yet arguably no way stretches, contorts, illumines, or calls upon us for a response more so than a step into the truth of Jesus. Who is this man who claims to be God? And what is the connection between Jesus and me? That is, the human is created in the image of a God who is relational, so what then are the implications for life, for church, for our engagement of the world? How does the Christian understand Jesus so to then understand the one standing in front of me? 

So where does one go to know Christ? To know the Christian God, and who is this God called Trinity? How does a Trinitarian, Christ-centered theology play out in my life and how I see the “other”?  

As the Christian Scriptures reveal, the human is created in the image of the Trinity – A Godhead that does not remain absent or quiet throughout the course of history. We are not talking about a God hidden behind divine revelation. Rather, God is for us fully revealed and fully concealed in His self-disclosure. As a result, the Christian Scriptures invoke participation… they beckon the reader to transformation. The movement to God, with God, from God is not a static event, something that happens once in a lifetime, but a continual process. And for those whose inflamed heart burns for the Son they find themselves pining after… longing for… continually turning toward the Son, who leads us, in union with the Holy Spirit, into an ever-deepening relationship with the Father. Thus, we are brought into the very life of the Trinity, that communion of love without end.

The Trinity is the paradigm by which we are to live. It is dynamic in relation; thus, God's being is His eternal, intrinsic communion. The Trinity provides not only the paradigm but also the process and protection of the relationality of humanity. For it is through the action of the Godhead that humanity gains relational access to the riches of the dynamics of revelation.

The words of Gregory of Nazianzus draw this to mind as he writes of the Triune God: “No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the splendor of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the One” (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 40.41).

Trinitarian theology is rooted in a relational foundation that recognizes people are created in the image of a relational God and as such, are not things, generic products, or numbers, but mysterious and unique subjects with inherent worth and the right to self-determination in fostering vital community. Therefore, we should not use and abuse one another. Yet today we experience the loss of personhood through the promotion of consumption. Forget what lies ahead. Push aside the risks. Consume. Consume.

In our push for consumption we consume— inadvertently at first - one another. Now, in our intentional consumption, we not only gain the whole world, but experience the loss of personhood. Today, the widespread loss of personhood and the reduction of persons to things robs all of us of our priceless worth and leads us to consume, deconstruct, and devalue the one sitting before us.

Trinitarian theology is communal and as such recognizes the truth, the necessity of community. It is best done in community, a community in which there is space for otherness and difference given God’s personal space for otherness in the divine life and in the world.

Our identity as relational people of the Triune (relational) God is foundational to our purpose and our activity.

As the great Dr. King illumined:

There is still something to remind us that we are interdependent, that we are all somehow caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.  Therefore whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. 

As long as there is poverty in the world I can never be rich, even if I have a million dollars.  As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people in this world cannot expect to live more than thirty years, I can never be totally healthy.  I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. 

As those created in the image of God, we must account for each human person in all their distinctiveness as being important in addition to their shared humanity. We must cherish each human person as equal in worth and dignity. We must focus upon the heart of the person and not their behaviors, their productivity, so that we might be as Horton the Elephant who reminds us, “after all, a person’s a person, no matter how small.” 

New Wine Uncorked: Epiphany: God is with us! Entering the New Year throu...

The discussion this morning flows from the newness of the year while continuing in the goodness of our Christmas celebrations. Truth is, Christmas lasts forty days – from Christmas eve to the presentation of the Christ child in the temple (Feb 2), according to the traditional liturgical calendar. And the 12 days of Christmas run from the 25th of Dec through Jan 6th which is known as Epiphany. 

Epiphany is the entrance – the presentation of hope, peace, joy to all of humanity– the reality of love with us. After all, God is “with us”—Emmanuel. Jesus manifests the divine presence in his entire incarnate state.

So where do we find ourselves this week? A couple days before the Biblical manifestation/presentation of Jesus for the world’s sake? Is the inn of our heart open for guests, or have we already closed off to all that stands before us? 

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New Wine Uncorked: Christmas Cheer: Truth of Christmas Present or Christ...

#love #trinity #jesus #holyspirit #father #newwine #nwnws 

As Christians, when regarding Christmas, are we honest with ourselves before looking at the words and deeds of our neighbors and their Christmas celebrations? And what then of our engagement of “the world?” How are we, as Christians, today bringing joy to the world; or, is the Christmas song we often sing one of judgment?

In this episode of New Wine Uncorked, Matt, Phil, Kayla, and Jim walk into the winter wonderland of Christmas. Is the Christian church today ushering in celebrations of joy because of the birth of their King or is the 21st century Christian nothing more than the great judger—forgetting the joy that was birthed some 2000 years ago? Are we today bringing judgement to one another as well as the world rather than joy?

Recorded live on Fridays at 10am (pst) New Wine UnCorked seeks to step into culture with a heart bent towards engagement, reconciliation, and relationship. 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, New Wine seeks to uncork the impossible possibility of the human and our pursuit of this Uncommon God so to realize our common good. Where to find New Wine: 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/newwinenewwineskins 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nwnws 

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Podcast: https://anchor.fm/newwinenewwineskins 

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Web: http://www.new-wineskins.org/

New Wine Uncorked: Christmas: Coming of Christ or Arrival of Chaos?

#love #trinity #jesus #holyspirit #father #newwine #nwnws 

Followers of Jesus are called to consume Christ. And yet this world would have it that we consume it and its products. Some go even further in saying that as we consume we become the product. So what then of our celebrations? Do they consume us in the One called the Christ or do our celebrations stir up nothing more than chaos?

In this episode of New Wine Uncorked, Matt, Phil, and Jim walk into the winter wonderland of Christmas. Where is the church today concerning Christmas? Are Christians today bearers of the good news of the coming of Christ the King or is the message bellowing out from the church that of chaos as Christians make every attempt to accommodate both Christ and culture? Recorded live on Fridays at 10am (pst) New Wine UnCorked seeks to step into culture with a heart bent towards engagement, reconciliation, and relationship. 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, New Wine seeks to uncork the impossible possibility of the human and our pursuit of this Uncommon God so to realize our common good.

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 - Love Beyond Limits: The Impossible Possibility?

#love #trinity #jesus #newwine #nwnws Knowing God’s heart means consistently, radically, and very concretely announcing, through our words and deeds, that God is love. And in this proclamation, we announce that every time fear, isolation, or despair begin to invade our soul we not only know this is not something that comes from God but that in such times our hearts have to cling ferociously to God. In this episode of New Wine Uncorked, Phil, Kayla, Jim, and Matt traverse the wonderful terrain of love… Love of God, Love of self, Love of neighbor. Recorded live on Fridays at 10am (pst) New Wine UnCorked seeks to step into culture with a heart bent towards engagement, reconciliation, and relationship.

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.

The timing...

How does one respond to something unseen? What does one do when the world around is getting smaller and smaller... slowly sucking the oxygen from our dreams? Who does one turn to when no one seems to know which way to turn? What is the answer to my struggles, fears, confusion, discontent, anxiety... Is there an answer?

And so it feels as though we can only hope to be carried away from today's current predicament. It seems as though finding peace within and peace outside is nothing more than a fanciful kids tale... and so it seems...

Crazy truth of now is the timing... COVID-19 raining down turmoil, tension, struggle... falling down to the ground from this virus is a brokenness unseen before by so many. And the timing...

Passion Week.

There set before Jesus ... the pain. the suffering. the shame. the torture...

There set before Jesus ... The sin of Humanity...

There set before Jesus ... The Cross.

How did Jesus find comfort, peace, and refreshment in the midst of that hungry, violently salivating, rugged old cross staring him in the face? What did Jesus do as the life He lived for the other was now being ripped away by the other?

Brace yourself... Facing despair, desolation and darkness of the soul like none ever, Jesus fell to His face and prayed.

When Jesus needed to be refreshed, when He needed to be “carried away,” He embraced the Holy Spirit so as to be taken into the arms, into the heart of the Father. And there He found the intensity of peace that not only brought Him to His knees, but made Him sweat blood.

There in the garden, Jesus checked out by checking in to the needs, to the brokenness, to the hurt, to the suffering of the other. There in the garden Jesus took our chaos, our unstableness, our pain, our virus...our sin, and made it His.

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” 

–Lk 22.42-44

Because of His love for us Jesus went to the Father so to reign down Holy love on His holy land through prayer. Through the Holy Spirit Jesus entered into the intensity of prayer for the sake of the world so that He might present the beauty and power of prayer.

Today, in your struggle to find peace you need not look to the world for your get away. What is needed more than anything right now is time with Jesus. Let the love of Jesus wreck your reality so as to make it real and right again. Today, check into Jesus for there in His embrace you will find rest for your soul.

May the Peace of our God wrap you up in the beautiful paradox of His radical love...

Identity of this moment

Identity... we easily lose sight of who we are as we get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holidays. Truth is, the holiday season can be something spectacular... if we do not get swallowed up by the rush of society and allow the consumption of stuff to define us. And this only happens when we push pause so that we might recognize the truth of identity...

Who we are is found only in God. Our creation comes from the One who is - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He created us. He sustains us. He is the ground of our life, our relationality, our meaning, our joy, our hope. 

During the times of rampant running to acquire stuff, what we need most is to pause so that we might return to God.

“Return to your God,” Amos tells the Israelites, and he is telling this to us as well. Like the Israelites, we too turn to the idols of this world to fill the voids we have created through our rampant running around. We consume the goods of society in such a frantic manner that who we are is not only lost in the shuffle, but subtly re-defined by this world.

The words of Amos are meant to shake our perspective so much so that we might return back to our King. So that we return back to the cradle in the cave in order to fall down and worship the baby who will eventually hang on a cross for our sake...

Might today be the time to pause and reflect on the truth and identity of this moment... of this season... so as to realize the truth and identity of you?

The truth of your identity is this... You are loved... You are God's beloved and He wants nothing more than to dote on you this day and every day after. Question is, will you allow Him? 

Will you pause this moment so as to be embraced by eternity? Will you pause this moment and look into the loving eyes of that baby in the manger and see the truth of identity... the truth of love... the truth of you?

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.”

Heaven's passion

No matter what may come your way, when we are in Christ through the Spirit, nothing in this world can separate us from His love. All we need is to find our place in prayer so as to realize our place in His heart.

God’s great desire for His people is that we feel secure in His love and in His power. Everything else in life may be unstable—our health, our family, our job, our education, our society, our world. At any given time and within any given moment you may feel as if you are out on a ledge forty stories up in an unpredictable wind. You feel yourself losing balance and falling, and every brick you grab pulls out of its mortar. When we walk according to "ourself" the ground beneath and the pillars all around us will only crumble.

Stability only comes from the One born in the stable.

Paradox of life is that being in Christ is the riskiest decision you can make…according to the world.

And yet saying "yes" to Jesus is the greatest decision you can take security in. Saying yes to Christ is saying yes to the crazy of life so as to find the stability of heaven's passion. As Paul writes, life in Christ is: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword—we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered (Romans 8:35–36).

Paul knew the craziness of a life of a disciple but he knew that the love of Christ was even crazier in its power, presence and passion.

“In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us…for nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (vs 37-39).

Paul’s life of faith was much like ours, one many questioned as to why do it? Why live such a life? Why give sacrificially when you are beaten, ostracized, criticized, while being opposed from every side?

But for Paul, as is for us today, the stability and power needed comes from the truth of being in Christ. For in Christ and through the Spirit we encounter the heart of God so as to find security in His love and strength in His power, even if everything else in the world is uncertain.

We have to be willing to fall to our knees and thank the One who became sin so as to seal us with His eternal love. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection far surpass all understanding and knowledge and yet they are so simple that a child can understand that Jesus loves them. This is why Christ’s incarnational performance is to be the foundation of who we are if we are to be the foundation of love this world so desperately needs.

Jesus wants to be our security. Question is, “How will you respond to the life Jesus is calling you into? Resting in His security or trying to secure your own rest?”

Father Almighty, in Christ and through the Spirit, we are covered in Your eternal security and presence so that we might be the covering of Your love for all the world to experience. Amen Jesus!

Beautiful Butterfly

Why live? Why get up each day and press on?

Sometimes we need to be reminded that life has purpose... life has a reason... life is worth living...

Sitting in my front room and feeling a little low and dejected, I was confronted by a story of a kid who rocked my world with his toughness, resolve, passion and zest...

Known as the "Butterfly Child," Jonathan Pitre reminded me why we say yes to the daily struggles of life. Because through our turmoil, tension and struggle we come to realize the joy of what it means to be alive... we come to realize the beauty of love and the power of our dreams.

Life wants to beat us down, but if our strength is from beyond this world, then we, like Jonathan, can look at life and respond, "Great things do not come easily. But they do come when you try with your full heart, when you're willing and open to embrace life, when you take things one day at a time and use what you've got."

And so what do we have? We have the ability to live life to its fullest if we are willing to focus on the light rather than the darkness. Jesus came to bring us into the light - we only need to choose the light.

All of us have struggles, all of us have pain. Take a moment and watch the story of Jonathan so that his strength, his resolve, his passion for life might motivate you to step out of your darkness so as to see the light Jesus has prepared for you. Step out of your cocoon and take flight you beautiful butterfly...

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:14045517

#espn60 #butterflychild #EB

See the harvest

Read Matthew 9:27-38

GOGH, Vincent van
The Sower
June 1888, Arles

How do we really know that God loves us?
Ask…

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 Shepherd. Ask the Spirit to touch your heart…

“Then He touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith be it done to you.’ And their eyes were opened” (vs 29-30).

We will only see when we surrender. And it is only through the Holy Spirit that surrender is possible as through the Spirit we recognize the significance of what Jim Elliot said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

In our surrender 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. How does the Spirit bring us to surrender? Prayer…

In prayer we enter into the life of Christ through the Holy Spirit so as to find His heart. In prayer we are engulfed in the crazy love of Christ so as to find peace, rest, hope, laughter, life. In prayer we experience the profound joy and freedom of becoming a participant in His ministry of reconciliation.

Prayer is available to each one of us. What we need is the faith to believe and the willingness to surrender to the Spirit so as to be led deeper into the truth and the love of Christ. And the deeper we step into Jesus the more we come to share in His divine life so as to realize the greatness of what it means to be “me,” thereby recognizing the greatness of you.

The greatness of you and me erupts into the greatness of us. And truth is, there is a whole lot of us. Yes, the harvest is plenty. But the question is, "Do we see the harvest?"

Let us this day pray ferociously for the fields to be inundated with lovers of Jesus. Let us this day saturate the fields with prayer so that the heart of the world will come to know the healing power of Jesus. Let us this day fall to our knees for when we are praying for a revival, loving what God loves, we will see the harvest for what it really is: a sea of fruit that is ripe today but may be withered and dead tomorrow.

What will it take for us to believe:

That if we ask anything according to His will he hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him. (1 John 5:14-15)

Have you surrendered your heart to Jesus today?

Choose to be Pro Love

The beautiful truth of being created in the image of a loving God is that we are given a choice... A choice to live for love or a choice to run from love. That is, He loves us so much that He allows us the ability to choose - we can accept that we are His beloved and then live this out by loving the other; or, we can reject His offer of love and live out life by elevating and loving self.

This is how much we are loved...The choice is ours...


And so where do you stand this day? What is your choice? Will you choose to be pro love?

The greatest response we can have to the One who is pro us is to become as He is...love. Yes, the greatest way to give thanks to the One who is love is to become His laborer of love. And how do we become His laborers of love? Prayer… Prayer is how we enter into the Spirit so as to become the love of Christ for the sake of the world. Prayer is how the passion of Christ becomes our passion. We are, in fact, only free as we allow ourselves to be loved by the overflowing fountain of Savior love. Our freedom is not in ourselves but in Christ. After all, we are not dead stones but living ones.

The passion Jesus had for us is life changing so much so that it is not merely about how much Jesus suffered for us, but how much He loves us. Love transforms suffering into sacrifice. His self-offering is the elevation of self because it is the transformation of self-love into Savior love, which erupts in our love for the other. For "Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Ephesians 5:2). This is love: the total gift of self...

When we go to Jesus through the Holy Spirit and commune with Him daily so as to build everything on the One who is love. Only when He becomes our choice can we become His foundation of love here and now. Only when we embrace His choice of pro love can we become the pro love this world needs.

Let us this day bend our knee so as to seek to become His living stones of love. Let us this day engulf our moments in love so as to become the rock of hope this world desperately needs. Let us this day be Jesus to the world.

Reform the devastation

Thanksgiving is here and Christmas looms. So what are we celebrating?

A quick look around the globe presents the tremendous tension that hovers over us: to give thanks and celebrate while destruction and death overwhelm the lives of so many. Planes brought down, scandals in our high schools, shootings in communities and freeways. Devastation all around seems to dampen the delight of divine beauty.

In light of this present reality many are wondering how it is that we can move into the holidays with hearts filled with good tidings and cheer? Where is our hope?

The complexity of the answer to where is our hope is found in the simplicity of what was done some 2000 years ago for the whole of humanity. A baby was born so that as a man He might hang on a tree. 

One birth. One death. One tree. Three nails. History witnessed hope.

Hope is wrapped in the truth of Immanuel - God with us. The only way to engage the happenings of life while seeking to celebrate the reality of life is found in the One who came to reorient our perspective. Christ came so that we might have hope, and in His coming He gave us the way to respond to the darkness of life.

We can only celebrate the truth of Christmas if we are willing to give thanks for the ability to step into the devastation and give of ourselves. To give until it hurts.

We give until it hurts because of what was done on our behalf. Yes, for us the giving did not stop at "until it hurts." The giving was done "to the point of death."

God’s self-giving in Christ is the epitome of His love and should become the essence of our thanksgiving. These days where we find our perspective constricted by the devastation of living our hearts must become saturated in the eternal vision of divine joy. We must look to the cross so as to see the beautiful joy that erupted through the birth of a baby.

Through His revelation, invitation and reconciliation we can step into the performance of a lifetime and live out the truth and reality of “God with us” so as to reveal the way of reformation of today's devastation. Through Christ's self-giving performance we are given the way to live out the truth of "we with God." It is a way that sees the truth of our "we with God" performance exploding on the stage of life through acts of kindness and love, acts of self-giving towards the “other” that not only overcome, but transform the postsuburban mentality that seeks to elevate self over the “other.”

Christ's Eucharistic performance (His self-giving) must become the root and foundation of the Church's being so as to become the motivation for her living. Hope will remain deferred if the Church remains destitute and deficient in her response to the world's devastation. But if we embrace the Spirit so as to grab hold of the heart of Christ, we can then become the hope that will reform the devastation into the divine image of heaven's glory.

Infection of the world

The life of faith is a life with God. And life with God is a communal reality, because all at once we are brought into the community of God that transcends the ways of this world—it is a community that is more than a simple gathering, it is an intimate family (Eph. 2:18-21). You have brothers and sisters who are yours, and you have a God who is calling you to Himself in love. And together we are to become the ultimate gift to this world.

Yes, as a follower of Christ the Holy Spirit beckons our hearts to come to the fountain of life. We are called into the truth of our foundation so that our actions, our lives are defined by being in Christ. This is what makes us His body, His community, His Church; it is what separates us from the world so that we might infect it (the world) with the crazy insane Love of Jesus.

The infection of the world through the church comes when our hearts let go of our worldly perspective so as to grab hold of a Christ-centered perspective. That is, when the joy of His love saturates our souls to such a depth that our thanksgiving overflows into the ocean of unending praise and giving. Yes, when we finally wake up to the truth of His sacrificial giving for our sake. When we cry out to the Spirit so that we might seek to imitate the bloody and beaten One draped over the cross of love by giving of ourselves for the other’s sake.

The world is crying out for the church to be the church. For the witness of our thanksgiving to be the complete giving of our hearts—relentlessly giving all of ourselves, withholding nothing because the only thing Christ withheld from us was the death sin is so deserving of. How can we not be thankful for the fact that He didn’t simply withhold death, but He swallowed it up in the victory of the cross? And then unashamedly has the audacity to invite us into His victory so as to share with us His eternal weight of glory that overcame sin and death.

How can we not be anything but joyously thankful and always giving?

Let us this day, as Christ’s disciples, as one body, one community—as His church, say yes to the Spirit so that through His presence and in His power we might live out our faith by living out Jesus’ commands—Love the Lord your God, Love your neighbor as yourself. Let us this day drench ourselves in prayer such that we lose ourselves in Christ’s heart so as to gain the victory of the cross. And let us step into the Holy Spirit so that through our lives of insane love the world might come to know the surpassing knowledge, peace and love of Jesus Christ.

Unleashing the power of the word

Each day is a gift from the Lord—a day that should be consumed with a desire to renew our zeal for Him. When we come before the throne of mercy and grace in order to spend time with the Lord, our hearts are renewed so that we might face whatever the day holds. In fact, followers of Christ should begin and end each day in prayer with thanksgiving.

What is more, our prayer life finds its vibrant energy when we use this time to meditate on the Word of God. In prayer and through the Word, the path of holy love becomes illumined so that we might remember all that has been done on our behalf, know how deeply loved we are and believe in the power and presence of our Risen Savior. Truth is, everything gets old and worn and weak without a re-awakening so as to renew and restore. Prayer is our awakening.

The crazy truth of life is that the further we press into faith in Christ the more resistance we will face from the insolent and accursed ones who wander away from the Word of God (v21). The more we resist the ways of the world the greater the scoffing and mocking we will encounter because our life of faith does not fit into the constructs of this world . We are “a sojourner on the earth,” (v19) whose heart has been awakened and consumed by the commandments and testimonies of the Lord our God, not the false teachings of the world (See Andrew Powell's sermon on False teachers ).

We need to saturate ourselves in prayer so that the word of God might become the tidal wave of hope that floods our hearts with the truth of divine love. We cannot know Christ on our own; we need the help of the Holy Spirit. In prayer and through the Holy Spirit we can incarnate the words of Scripture even in the midst of scorning and contempt (v17). Prayer is essential to Christian living, because it is the key to unlocking the power of the Word in our lives.

In Eph 1.18 Paul prays, “that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling . . .” Paul knows that when we open the word of God so that we might know the Word of God our hearts are renewed so that the redemption and restoration of Christ becomes the truth of our lives in and through the Holy Spirit.

Let us this day seek to consume the word of God so as to be consumed by the Word of God. Let us this day meditate on His commandments so as to grow more and more like Him. Let us this day be in prayer, crying out with the Psalmist, “Lord open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (v18).