Grace over time

 I'd like to invite you to think back a few years. Let's say a decade.

The year is 2011. You may have lived in a different place, driven a different car, attended a different school and/or church. Your midsection was probably a little thinner and your hair a little thicker. Your face had fewer wrinkles and your energy level was a bit higher. Your family probably had a different dimension--you were living at home and are now on your own, or your kids were at home and now they're gone (mostly or moved out).

A lot can happen in 10 years.

On the inside, too.

If you are walking with Jesus, there's a high likelihood that you are more forgiving, more patient, more kind, more... well, more like Jesus.

So 10 years is easy to see, right? Just look at a picture from 10 years ago and you'll know it was a different time. But how about 5? Are you more forgiving, patient, kind, and loving than you were in 2016? 

Me too.

And that person you've been struggling to get along with, too.

We tend to give ourselves a ton of credit for good intentions, even when our actions don't line up. And we sometimes see others with a critical spirit for their actions even though we can't see their intentions.

Yet over time, the same God of grace work that's working in your life is at work in theirs too. Maybe even more than in yours. Maybe a lot more.

And grace works from the inside out.

So while you and I have been critical of their actions, our loving Father has been patiently, gently forming the likeness of Jesus in them. 

This is the beauty of grace. What He's been doing in you, He's been doing in others. And what He's been doing in others, He's been doing in you. Faithfully. Consistently. 

That means the folks who used to be hard to love may have gotten easier to love. Those you may have struggled to trust might be exceedingly trustworthy now. Not to mention that you are now better at loving, better at trusting.

This is one of the great beauties of Christian community!

Anyone you may have written off, God never did.

Maybe it's time to give them a second chance. Look on them with your more-Christlike-eyes and risk that they may be doing the same.

This could change everything.

Wanna Be Special?

 I love the way the word of God works.

Sometimes, out of the blue, I'm minding my own business and then I encounter something I've never seen before.

This particular time I was reading a 5-day devotional plan from the folks who have created the AMAZING TV show "The Chosen." (If you haven't watched yet, I can't recommend it highly enough. You can access it on their App, YouTube channel, ROKU, etc.)

Anyway, I was reading the final days' Devotional*, which was great, and "happened" upon 2 Tim 2:21. It's a verse I've ready dozens, perhaps hundreds of times. But I'd never really seen it before. Maybe you'll see it anew as well:

"If you keep yourself pure, you will be a special utensil for honorable use. Your life will be clean, and you will be ready for the Master to use you for every good work." (NLT)

Don't you want to be a special utensil? 

And used honorably?

By the Master?

For every good work?

Honestly, I'm just a bit undone by the whole idea. Those are things I crave every day of my life. 

Before we go any further, I just have to say how much I love the word "utensil." Or, as Ariel called it in The Little Mermaid, a Dinglehopper! I want to be a fork in the hand of God, ready to dig into the work He's called me to... and laid out for me to do long ago! (Eph 2:10)

A utensil (be it a fork, spoon, or yard rake) is simply a tool. Inglorious. Utensils are commonplace. But in the hands of our God? World changing!

However, there is an important antecedent phrase leading to all this special, honorable, useful language. I suspect it's one many of us may have looked past in recent seasons. 

"If you keep yourself pure..." 

And there's my encouragement for you and me today. Let's consider how we might keep ourselves pure. Paul gives Timothy--and us--some help.

While he goes a bit longer, this seems a good start for us all: "Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace. Enjoy the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts."

What could you do to take a step in this direction... the one that leads to being a special utensil for honorable use... ready for the Master to use you for every good work?

I'm trying to discern my answer to the same question. Let's share the journey!

*The Chosen: God’s love extends beyond your brokenness and will transform your life. See Jesus through the eyes of the real people that encountered him with this 5-day devotional inspired by The Chosen, the first multi-season original tv series about the life of Christ.

The Hardest Ministry

I've had a few folks, especially in the last few years, say that the hardest job in the church is that of the Worship Pastor, or Minster of Music, or whatever you call it. Everyone has an opinion about the style of music--more newer, more older--or more people, or fewer people, choir, organ, brass, drums, electric guitar, hymns, choruses, Bethel, Elevation, Passion, Getty, T4G, Vineyard, and on and on it goes.

I appreciate the sentiment, and even more the sensitivity to the challenges. At one level I agree. People are deeply passionate about their musical preferences and traditions.

But at another, I can't imagine the holy burden of being a senior pastor. In seasons of my career I've had a little taste. Serving a church without a pastor, I would feel the weight of the spiritual battles of many people. I slept less. I had to pray more. In that way, it was harder than what I do.

But I think there's a harder ministry than that.

It's a ministry you don't need to be a seminary grad to do, or a college grad, or even a Sunday school grad.

You don't have to be ordained; it isn't reserved for only men, or only women, or only adults.

Figure it out yet?

It's the ministry of presence.

That's it.

You walk into the path of the freight train of unspeakable grief and stand your ground on the tracks, being fully present with the person in crisis. Or you sit in the hospital waiting room where the silence is louder than a heavy metal concert and you wait. Even when you don't want to be, you are simply and profoundly present with someone who is hurting.

The hardest part is the feeling of powerlessness that accompanies the silence. 

I recently heard Rick Warren, who knows the darkest caverns of grief, say that "the deeper the grief, the fewer the words."

And that's what makes it so hard. We are accustomed to using our words to help people feel better. But words are powerless, or nearly so.

When there's no way to feel better--not yet anyway--the only thing better than words, than preaching, than music, that anything? It's your presence.

So that person you know of who is hurting... or when the time comes that someone you love is in this kind of pain...

I will be so bold as to commission you to be the Minister of Presence for that precious child of God. Even though it's the hardest, it's also the most powerful. There's a real good chance you will be one of just a few who know how to use very few words paired with very many hours to do the hardest ministry there is.

Good? Friday

 I'm writing on Good Friday, but this post will be released on Easter Monday.

In the equivalent of a long weekend, followers of Jesus will go from wearing black clothes and fasting to wearing bright colors and feasting.

If it feels like your Friday will never end, when it seems like an eternally long weekend, I remind you that Easter is coming sooner than you think. Resurrection can only follow death.

I'm not sure about you, but I want to experience the resurrection from the dead!

How can we do that? 

According to an amazing passage in Philippians 3:7-11 there are four stops along the way:

1. Discard my reputation. This is how I become one with Jesus. All of those accolades I've fought for, services I've led, ministries that have grown, all of it... toss it out with the trash.
2. Shed self-righteousness. If I will replace my pharisaical condemnation of others with humbly honoring everyone I encounter, I'm living out my faith. And faith is how I gain the righteousness of Christ.
3. Know Jesus. This is eons away from knowing about Jesus. I may know a lot about Taylor Swift, but if I don't know her--have her number as one of my favorites on my iPhone--or better yet, she has me as one of her favorites on your iPhone, I don't really know her. Many of us spend a lot of time learning about Jesus, but we don't spend much time getting to know him.
4. Suffer with Jesus, sharing in his death. Wait, what? Sharing in his death? Suffering? Yes. And yes. This is the ultimate was we get to know Jesus. Our suffering has a purpose. When I invite God into my suffering, I know Him more deeply than any other way. In other words, when I die to myself, I am raised to life. I live more of the life of Jesus.

Good Friday or Easter Monday... it's all about perspective. Same Jesus. Same God. Same story. 

I'll say it once more: "If it feels like your Friday will never end, when it seems like an eternally long weekend, I remind you that Easter is coming sooner than you think. Resurrection can only follow death."

I invite you to read the passage from Philippians. And after you've read, consider what you will do. Then do it. Might be a prayer, a phone call, or a wholesale change in your perspective. I don't know. But you will. So go for it. I'm cheering you on!

I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! - Philippians 3:7-11