God
“But let’s admit it: it can be hard to stay on a balance point. We go through cycles of feeling anxious, feeling guilty, feeling resentment, feeling rebellious, and then feeling relief when we identify a worse sinner than ourselves. We’re unstable, I think, because it is so hard to grasp how absolute God’s side of the relationship is. He loves us, even while we are sinners, and nothing can halt or deflect the force of his love. He is love, and his love fills the universe. It comes entirely from him, and knows no limits. It takes no notice of whether we are are lovable or not, whether we want him to love us or not. He will love us no matter what, and nothing can stop him.”
—Frederica Mathewes-Green, Welcome to the Orthodox Church
(Bold emphasis added by me.)
It’s now more punk to be a practicing, Bible-believing Christian, than it is to be an actual punk rocker.
And politics aside, what a story of God’s grace and mercy Dave Mustaine is. https://x.com/auronmacintyre/status/1791656400268988496
The band Behold the Beloved may have single-handedly redeemed the song “Oceans,” for me. It has been on my “Banned If I Were in Charge of Worship Music” list for many years. Doesn’t hurt they use a slice of Aaron Shust’s “My Savior My God” in it.
“There is no heaven that has a little corner of hell in it.”
What a line. Oswald Chambers knew what was up with God’s redemptive work in our lives.
It opens today’s devotional: utmost.org/the-inevi…
He'll never leave you or forsake you
I help administer a private group on Facebook for foster and adoptive dads, and posted this today for encouragement, because I needed it myself:
So lately I’ve been struggling with the strong wills of my boys, and of my own. The constant tug-of-war. My wife and I were talking about it over lunch today, because she shares in the frustration (she’s strong-willed as well), and I reminded her, as much as myself, that they act this way because they feel securely attached to us.
“Well, it would be nice if they weren’t complete JERKS about it!” she sighed. She didn’t use the word “jerks,” but I’m trying to keep this family-friendly.
I mention this because I know I’m not alone in being a dad frustrated with the behaviors of his kids from hard places. Especially when they’ve been in our home for so long (birth for two of them, 9 months old for the third, and they’re 16, 11, and 8 now), and it just doesn’t feel like things are getting better.
Then God decides to plant a reminder on you in an unexpected way. In an email newsletter unrelated to parenting, there was this verse of encouragement from Hebrews, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” God always has our back, and we just need to go to Him with our frustrations, seek His peace.
And because I’m an ’80s metalhead, this verse and the feeling behind it will always be enshrined for me in the opening song from Rage of Angels' self-titled, 1989, debut album:
[youtube id=“HCNKyZwP4a8”]
The grass withers, the flowers fade...
My friends Kara and Ryan, who founded and run Imana Kids, posted a photo to the Imana Instagram account with the text of Isaiah 40:8: “The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.”
This verse imprinted on me in a most unique way when I was a teenager. Anyone who knows me knows I was a metalhead in my teen years (and I still am). After I discovered Stryper, and the realm of Christian metal, I came across a Christian rock band called Ruscha. The band was founded by brothers Nikolai and Peter Pankratz, who escaped Communist Russia in the 1970s. They started the band in the 1980s as an outlet for their love of music, and as a vehicle for giving witness to what it was like to be a Christian in Soviet Russia. Andy Denton, whose vocal range is highlighted on the song “Come Home”, was the group’s frontman.
There was a church in one of the Baton Rouge suburbs, Baker or Zachary maybe, I don’t recall which, that hosted the band. (It was the same church I also saw Wayne Watson perform at.) My dad went with me to the event, part concert, part testimony. I’d gotten their album “Come Alive” at a local Christian book store, and loved some of the songs. I can still see in my mind’s eye Andy, Nikolai, and Peter on stage in that church.
There are two things from that album and concert that have stuck with me to this day:
- Nikolai and Peter talking about believers smuggling individual pages of the Russian-language Bibles in slits in potatoes, and how if the pages were left in there too long, they were ruined by the potatoes' fluids. They salvaged whatever pieces they could, because people were that starved for the Word of God.
- The song "The Word Stands Forever", which uses Isaiah 40:8 as the chorus. It's the only Ruscha song I can still sing by heart.
The memories I just shared, stirred up by the Imana Kids post, sent me on an Internet hunt, and the Internet delivered. There’s a Wikipedia entry for the band, linked to earlier in this post. Which led me to wonder if any of their music was available online; the copy of “Come Alive” I have is on cassette, and most likely buried in a shoebox in a closet. We have an Amazon Music Unlimited subscription, and lo and behold! The Pankratzes released a remastered version in 2012, and I’m listening to it as I type this post, with a smile on my face as I sing along to “The grass withers, the flowers fade, Heaven and Earth will pass away, the grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of God stands forever.”
[youtube id=“vI4dXQQ2Src”]
I Have So Much to Learn From My Sister, Africa - Prodigal Magazine
I Have So Much to Learn From My Sister, Africa - Prodigal Magazine
I sit on the ground with her, this woman in the brightly printed dress and crow’s feet from the Widow’s Village in Rwanda.
She sits with a thud, because the genocide has that kind of impact–it has robbed her of her husband and her children–and she has been listening to another woman tell her story and the memories–they’ve just collided and shoved her down.
So I sit there with her in the dirt, a child in my lap and the village around us.
“God is good,” she whispers.
[youtube www.youtube.com/watch
TODAY IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY…
I have always loved this story.
Beautiful Feet: Let's Be Real. Really.
Beautiful Feet: Let's Be Real. Really.
“Abby and I sat back and marveled, recounting how Jesus also went through lots of difficult moments in his life. How he chose to become human and experience a world full of harshness. He didn’t remain aloof, or skirt over touchy issues. He dug into people’s messy, broken, dirty lives and loved them with a perfect heart. And when his friend Lazarus died, Jesus wept. Jesus was real.
"Abby and I talked of the blessings God has given each of us.
"God loved us enough to become a man and ultimately conquer sin and death in order for us to be with him forever. (Hello, Good News!)”
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.
I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?
May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us in all our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.
—George Washington, letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, 1790
A prayer for all of us.
The More I Believe
The life that I’ve been living From the day I first drew breath Has been my way of forgetting I’m on the journey to my death You make my soul rise up You make my eyes to see When I place my faith in you And I lose my belief in me
The less I believe in me The more I believe in thee The less I believe in me The more I believe in thee
I don’t believe in beads or crystals Instant karma or mother earth I don’t believe that what I think Makes any difference to what I’m worth I don’t believe in reincarnation I’m not coming back as a flower I don’t bow my head to kings or priests ‘Cos I believe in your higher power
The less I believe in me The more I believe in thee The less I believe in me The more I believe in thee
Oh you’ve given me a plan That I don’t understand 'Cos I’ve wandered over half the world But I’ve remained an ignorant man One thing That I know Is when the final bell tolls Human love won’t be enough Good deeds can’t save my soul
Well I’m not afraid of dying But I am afraid of you Because you hear me when I’m lying And you see the things I do So the hands go round the clock As the light goes from the room And I can’t help thinking to myself I’m going to find out much to soon
The less I believe in me The more I believe in thee The less I believe in me The more I believe in thee
Oh you’ve given me a plan That I just don’t understand 'Cos I’ve wandered over half the world But I’ve remained a ignorant man One thing that I know Is when the final bell tolls Human love won’t be enough Good deeds can’t save my soul
I believe I believe I believe I believe I believe I believe I believe I believe
You make my soul rise up You make my eyes to see When I place my faith in you And I lose my belief in me
The less I believe in me The more I believe in thee The less I believe in me The more I believe in thee
–Charlie and Craig Reid, 1994
Jesus loves dinner time
Tonight at the dinner table, Samuel decided it was time to do a little singing.
Jesus loves dinner time from Chris Turner on Vimeo.
Talking openly about our doubts
[D]oubt is a necessary part of faith. We tend to think that faith and doubt are opposites, but they're not. The opposite of faith isn't doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty. If we are certain of something, we don't need faith. Faith and doubt, then, exist side by side -- and that plays itself out all over the Bible ("Lord I believe! Help me overcome my unbelief.").
But -- reason #2 -- doubt is about as taboo a subject as you can bring up in church. When was the last time anyone in a small group or church service admitted to not knowing if he or she believed in God? Or wondering if God was really present at all, or good? I've honestly had readers tell me that they'd love to read my book, but worry about what their friends or family might think when they see them reading a book about doubt. It sounds flippant, but maybe they should hide my book behind a Playboy. It's more acceptable to be a Christian with a porn problem than a Christian with a doubt problem. That's horrible. I want doubters to know that they're not alone in the journey, and that it's OK. That they don't have to pretend to have it all together. That they don't have to fake it. I hope this book gives them the freedom to be honest, and the encouragement to continue pursuing God, however that might look.
Hope
We are not much different than burdened travelers, are we? We roll in the mud of self-pity in the very shadow of the cross. We piously ask for his will and then have the audacity to pout if everything doesn’t go our way. If we would just remember the heavenly body that awaits us, we'd stop complaining that he hasn't healed this earthly one.
Our problem is not so much that God doesn't give us what we hope for as it is that we don't know the right thing for which to hope. (You may want to read that sentence again.)
Knowing who we are
Andrew Farley, The Naked Gospel:
Sometimes we see ourselves as sinners in the loving arms of a God who is pretending not to see us as we really are. In our minds, maybe God is wearing a pair of "Jesus glasses" that hides our true state from his vision. We find it difficult to grasp the idea that God calls us righteous because we actually are righteous. It feels more humble to believe that we're filthy worms awaiting a future change into beautiful butterflies.
Jesus stated it best. He said that our righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees in order to enter the kingdom (Matthew 5:20). So if we Christians don't claim to possess perfect righteousness, we're lowering God's standard. We're watering down the gospel. We insinuate that Jesus can unite himself with sin. And we insult the perfection of God.
Only perfection will do. This is precisely why God had to make us perfectly righteous in our human spirits through our own death, burial, and resurrection. With its apparent humility, this filthy worm theology appeals to the flesh. But God certainly doesn't condone our wallowing in poor self-image.
The risen Christ doesn't join himself to filthy worms. The Holy Spirit doesn't dwell in dirty sinners. Christ only unites himself with those who are like him in spirit. The Holy Spirit doesn't reside in someone who remains even 1 percent flawed by sin.
But we've been perfectly cleansed. And we've been made perfectly righteous at our core through spiritual surgery. This is the only way we can enjoy even a moment of relationship with Jesus Christ. I have often used the same analogy Farley mentions above, of God looking at us through "Jesus-colored glasses," and I realize I may have been incomplete in my explanation in the past. Not to be repetitive with Farley's own elaboration, but my meaning has always been that when God sees a believer, he sees perfection, as when he sees Jesus. As when he sees himself. This is who we are, fellow Christians. We have no need to add to it. It's impossible for us to do so. There is no magic checklist we can look at to see how our perfecting is going. At the same time it is ongoing, it's also already done. Why can we not accept that? What are we afraid of? Knowing who we are, righteous before a perfect and holy God, should fill us with hope. A hope we should be passing on to our fellow man. Know who you are. Be who you are. Not to lord it over others, as the Church has too often been wont to do for years, but to show God's love to the world. He has chosen to work through us, and we should joyfully allow Him to do so.
Thank you, Lord, for books
No offense to ebooks and Kindle, which have their place, but there's no substitute for a book that has an actual history, that takes up space on a shelf, that has been somewhere, strapped to the back of a bike, that was being read in a British boys' school library while Lewis was still teaching at Oxford.
Thank you, Lord, for books. Not just the words, but actual physical books you can hold in your hand and touch and smell, and ponder where they have been and what lives they may have touched.
On God's grace
Andrew Farley, The Naked Gospel:
Grace is the system that the Holy Spirit uses to counsel and teach us on a daily basis. Grace is in place, whether or not we've sinned recently. We worry that an absence of law will result in a lifestyle that is out of control. This concern is natural. But is contradicts what the Scriptures say about the effects of grace. grace isn't just a treatment for sin; it's actually the cure for sin!
When we question the function of grace in our lives, we're insulting God's intelligence. Would he users in a New Covenant that not only allows but actually promotes sin? Is God foolish to think that grace really motivates us to live godly lives?
The secret is that grace deactivates our pride. Removing the law from our lives means our self-effort is no longer prodded to control behavior. The law excites human effort. It encourages us to depend on resources outside of Christ. But unconditional acceptance deactivates human effort and allows the Holy Spirit to be all that he wants to be through us.
Our greatest fear is that we'll be out of control. But we were never made to be in control. Self-control has always been a natural attribute of the Holy Spirit. The reason he lives within us is to produce the self-control that we're afraid we'll lack under grace.