Now This!

I'm not into generating fear.

There is a lot of fear mongering taking place on the news, on the web and even from the pulpit! However I am very much in favor of assessing our present situation and setting expectations for the future appropriately AND helping people understand God's goodness, love and sovereignty and to have hope even if the worst were to happen so that unbelief, fear and despair has no place in
our hearts.

I have peace not because of certainty that the worst won't happen but because of certainty that the best is yet to come when the worst has had its final day!

It disturbs me how some seemed to have bought into the idea that certain disasters could never befall us on our own national soil even though these terrible things are already happening to good people around the world. Jesus said "all these things must happen and then the end will come."

I really don't know if the worst worst will happen at this time. But just to reframe things, perhaps the worst is already happening and we're so caught up in our "happy" lives we don't know how miserably desperate the world and our country really is. We have become numb to it all and anesthetize ourselves with various coping behaviors including watching fear mongering news which essentially helps us believe, "It's not so bad now because it could always be worse."

Friends, even if another difficult thing never visits our land aren't the atrocities already occurring in terms of gang violence, rape, abortions, sex and physical abuse, racism, human trafficking, murder, drug wars as well as the World Wars and "conflicts" which have already occurred bad enough? How bad do we need it to be before we wake up and realize disaster is already upon us! We are in desperate need for God's deliverance and salvation and frankly I hope and believe out of God's great LOVE He will soon bring it to an end. But know this, that God's final resolution may look like the "all these things" Jesus was talking about. Other than Jesus' first coming on the earth, it would be God's most definitive and loving act this world had ever experienced on a global scale. It is the day when He will finally say, "Enough!"

Some may call this fear mongering and it would be--except that my focus is on the hope for a better day than the one we're already facing today.
 

Fierce Determination

There comes a point in every boy's life when he crosses into the deep waters of becoming a man. During his childhood and adolescence he watches his father model strength, character, discipline, love and joy. He benefits by grace all of the noble qualities his father possesses. 

Yet also, by grace his father begins to recognize that critical time in his son's life when the boy must step into and develop those qualities within himself. His father then will begin to shift from a place of modeling to a place of discipline. It would be entirely unloving and negligent for his father to do anything less for his son.

The boy has been given a body which has the incredible ability to increase exponentially in power, strength and creativity. That is grace. As the boy grows however, he may choose to remain immobile on the couch. He may mature in some ways but will not develop his full potential. A good father will correct and discipline his son and a wise son will embrace and step into the grace of a disciplined life.

The process in our spiritual life is the same.

By grace we have been saved and this is not of ourselves but truly is a gift from God through what was accomplished on our behalf on the cross. It is not by our own efforts that we are saved lest we get proud and think we have accomplished something without God. By grace we are also made mature in purity and love and holiness. By grace God fully intends for us as our loving and attentive father to willingly step into and develop those qualities of which He has paid a great price for us to have. I have to admit, for too long I insisted on laying passively on the couch refusing to grow into the strength God intends for me to have. I am discovering that God is fiercely determined that I would be sanctified and chastened until I am fully changed into that which He made me to be--because of His great love for me.

Am I ready? Will I kick and scream that my life is not comfortable enough? Will I resent my Father's discipline? Or will I embrace with fierce determination adversity and testing as an opportunity to step into the glory my Father has waiting for those who overcome and persevere to the end.

Hebrews 12:11

Tombs & Wombs

You were a caterpillar. You are becoming a butterfly. The becoming won't be easy because the caterpillar must die in order for the butterfly to emerge. For the caterpillar the cocoon is a tomb. For the butterfly the cocoon is a womb. It is difficult for you to imagine what it means to be a butterfly. It is difficult for you to understand what it means to become. It is terrifying to think that in becoming you must die. All I can offer to you is a promise--

There is no sacrifice you can make that can compare to the glory, joy and fulfillment that is to be revealed when that butterfly emerges from the tomb.

Romans 8:18, 2 Corinthians 3:18, Galatians 2:20, Colossians 3:3

Grace Wants You

Grace does not redefine wrong as right, but it does redefine sinners as righteous. Grace does not remove the law, but stoops down to carry the weight of it on our behalf. Grace looks kindly upon our weaknesses and strengthens us to do what we cannot do on our own. Grace does not remove every consequence for bad choices yet it does not withhold blessing in the face of imperfection. Grace is more interested in blessing us for any good reason rather than cursing us when we miss the mark. Grace says that we are worth being loved even though we've done nothing to earn it. Changing does not make us deserving of Grace, rather Grace deems us worthy of change and lovingly disciplines us to bring that change about. Grace is sometimes willing to allow us to suffer for our greatest good. Grace is sober-minded and does not sugarcoat our existence but speaks the truth in love. Grace is more interested in our eternal joy rather than our temporary comfort or gratification.

Grace wants me more than I want Grace.