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'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!

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…

Heart of the Savior

Read Hebrews 11

Living by faith is often perplexing—leaving us feeling at one point completely confused while at another point completely confident. Such a reality encompasses each one of us…a reality which is why, I think, Paul prays incessantly that followers of Christ would have “spiritual wisdom . . . and bear fruit in every good work” (Col 1.9-11).

Truth is, faith and “good works” are risky, inconvenient, dangerous, inopportune and will hardly be written in the sky or spoken in a dream. In fact, such faith and works will most assuredly bring about persecution, pain, turmoil or disruption. And this is precisely why Paul prays for spiritual wisdom.

Paul prays that we might have spiritual wisdom so that we might have spiritual tenacity. In order for us to catch fire of faith, we must be consumed by the wisdom of heaven. We must wrestle with the flesh so as to be crowned with the spiritual. We must saturate our hearts in prayer. We must engulf our minds with the words of Scripture. We must embrace the Spirit so as to consume the heart of Christ. For there in the heart of the Savior we will find the assurance of faith. 

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. Faith is the truth of stepping into the inconceivable acts of God. The wonderful acts of God - both extraordinary miracles and more ordinary acts of providence - come about “by faith.” When we enter into the scene of Hebrews 11 we see that:

By faith they passed through the red sea (v29) . . . by faith the walls of Jericho feel down (v30) . . . by faith Rahab . . . did not perish (v31) . . . by faith [they] conquered kingdoms (v33) . . .

In our faith we come to realize at the deepest of all levels just how crazy God loves us. And in this love our hearts are drawn into the delight and wonder of surrendering to His everything so that we might become everything He created us to be. Amen Jesus!

Wrestling for the souls of the world

Read Psalm 16

David writes in Psalm 16 “I have no good apart from You” (v.2). God was all the world to him. This did not mean that David wasn’t thankful for his family, kingship, and other blessings. It simply meant that God Himself is incomparably greater than any of His gifts—that He was the all-sufficient, all-satisfying joy, truth, and purpose of David’s life.

Many might not know it, but across the nation wrestling championships are taking place this month and early next month. I know this because a part of who I am is wrestling. And at one time, wresting was my world. I wrestled through college and a bit beyond. Went on to coach, lead camps etc... Through it all, I got close but never achieved what I thought I needed in order to fulfill who I thought I was.

What I did achieve though, was to realize that faith is like wrestling. We have to have heart in order to succeed for everyday we come face to face with turmoil, pain and contention. Everyday Satan seeks to pin our hearts to the mat of discontent, hopelessness and unjoy. But like David, if we are willing to wrestle with the One who is life, we will come to find all we truly need.

Truth is, in wrestling with Jesus I found my heart, my joy, my hope, my strength. I found myself by finding the glory of His grace. Yes, when Jesus saw me finally let go and let Him be my everything it was then that He lifted me up so as to give me His everything.

Everyday Jesus cries out to us to let Him be our everything. Everyday the Spirit wrestles with my heart so as to awaken it to Jesus in order that He might be my refuge, “my chosen portion and my cup” (v5).

Everyday we need to step further into the heart of Jesus by surrendering to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Jesus tells us that apart from Him, we can do nothing (Jn 15.5). This is the very truth David was pouring out in Psalm 16 – God must be our refuge, He must be where we find identity, where we find our everything.

Let us this day wrestle with the darkness by wrestling with the Crown of the Cross. Yes, let us embrace the Spirit so as to embrace the heart of Christ. For when our heart steps into the heart of Christ so as to know Him we come to know ourselves. For it is from Christ, through the Spirit, that we find our identity. And in finding ourselves in Christ we find the strength to begin wrestling for the souls of the world…