cORe.

At the core, the deepest part of you, who are you?

Are you the things that you own?

Are you the title you currently fulfill?

Are you what your mom or dad said that you always would be?

Are you the person that was teased for being fat or ugly or dumb or whatever labels that was attached to you?

Why this is so important, so central? It is because everyone operates out of their core. What we really believe lies buried deep in the nucleus of our souls and it influences everything we do. Our central appetite for approval must be fed and it is always fed through the filter of what we believe to be true about ourselves. Whether they are true or not that isn’t what is important, it’s what you believe them to be true about you, that is the place that we operate from.

One of the reasons that Jesus is so very radical or revolutionary is that he is a person that refuses to be an add on to our lives. Like a political button that we wear of our favorite politician. No, Jesus Christ is the heart reconstructing , image annihilating, throne destroying Savior of the universe that has a central message of grace. This message states that through faith we are accepted by God himself. Our new identity is the cross. It is a sign of God’s approval of us. God is pleased with us. God the Father accepts us for who we are, not what we do for him. I am God's very own!

That thought has made me smile all day today!

“If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation the old has gone and the new has come!”

2 Corinthians 5:17

Flow.

We like movement. The going-forward type movement is most preferred. We enjoy being on the go, making a run for it, and running the race. We love positive progress. We even attach very negative terms to non-movement: Terms like stagnant, stalled, idle or stuck. None of us desire a stagnant life, a stalled car, an idle friendship, or being stuck at work.

I wonder why. Does the breakneck pace of our lives reveal more about what’s going on, on the inside than the outside? Are we running like crazy people from one appointment to another because on the inside we feel stagnant or stuck and movement, any kind of movement, is better than all of our stuck-ness? Are our souls so devoid of life that we have to run in circles like maniacs flailing our arms just to deaden the dullness of our stagnant inner life? Sadly, today it is counter-cultural to believe that stillness has any benefit, or being idle on purpose is profitable to our core. Instead being super busy is awarded on so many levels, even in our Christ following communities. It’s almost as if we decided somewhere along the line that we must receive merit badges in heaven for how busy we’ve been for “God.” I know someone who attends six different Bible studies a week! SIX! (If you see nothing wrong with this, just close this page and go back to that crazy arm-flailing thing that you were doing)

I am not certain if this is the first time in Christian history that this attitude has been so prevalent, but today, in America, it is at pandemic proportions. The ancients of the faith would be appalled, not at how much we are trying to do in the name of Jesus, but that we are serving water from an empty well and one day soon, someone will point out that there is no water in the glass of water we just handed them.

To Flow-over we must slow down. NOW! Lord help us!

A Doxology.

This reading from the end of the little letter in the Bible called Jude is often called a "Doxology." Which simply is "A praise to God," often found at the end of epistles and psalms. This one is fitting to be found at the end of a life, the life of a friend.

Todd was called home this morning. He leaves behind two daughters, his ex-wife, his mom, brothers and sisters and many friends. As Peter and I visited him yesterday I wondered for a brief moment if I will be able to face the end of my life here on earth with the same measure of confidence and faith. Todd was cetainly not perfect here, he had issue like all of us. But today, free of cancer, free of sin, he stands before a loving Savior who was able to keep him from falling away. Jesus was able to present Todd to the Father without fault, perfected in the blood of Jesus Christ, accepted and whole.

24To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— 25to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen."
Jude 1:24-25

We will see you soon my friend.

Everything.

I have been meditating on this reality for the last few weeks:

“His divine power has given us everything that we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who has called us by his own glory and goodness.” 2 Peter 1:3

Peter makes the proclimation that living in us there is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. Not our power, or a power we initiate, for that would be of little use. We desperately need a bigger power, a more glorious power than we can conjure up on our own. Our Father knows this and places a deposit in us that gives us everything we need for life. Everything. This part of the promise we can almost wrap our brains around. It’s the other statement that is so blasted hard to grasp for me: We also have everything we need for godliness. Everything.

Now this is the unbelievable part because we experience the vast array of godlessness in the context of our lives, all around us in our society and even in the people that we are close to. We fight our fallen sinful nature tooth and nail one day and then capitulate with no resistance on the very next. We battle the Devil and his minions with prayer and fasting for a season and wallow in sin the next. People through out the Bible are in the same mess, men like Moses, David, Noah all considered great men of God, all with brutal flaws. Even the writer of this little Epistle, self identified as Simon Peter, was a great man of God that had issues. Yet Peter proclaims that the power of God in us gives us everything we need for godliness. Everything that we need to be more like Christ. The question remains: will we lean on that power to help us to die to self and live for God?

Its all available to us everyday inside through faith.

Six Months Of Silence

In blog entries I have often spoken of time moving quickly or not believing that it was already this date or that. Much of that, I think, was under the self-imposed pressure to write something, so I rebelled and wrote nothing over the last six months, almost to the day.

Now, perhaps, I have something to say again, perhaps….

Today I held the hand of a man who is in the hospital dying. During my moment there he spoke incongruent mental meanderings in-between his more sane statements. He has cancer that has metastasized to his brain and as a result he will die very soon, much to soon. We prayed and we cried as I visited with his mother and we spent time talking about his soon-to-be-held funeral. In some ways I liken the experience to opening a fresh jar of horseradish and taking a deep whiff. Not so much the burning sensation of the sinus cavity, but more like the clearing of the nasal passages so I could breathe again. It brought focus and clarity to my life and even to his mom’s life, through many tears of sadness and weakness.

My friend has spent the last several months sick with the aggressive disease that will shortly claim his body and release his soul from its tortured prison. Cancer has racked him like nothing else with a fury of pain and frailty. Yet, he has kept such a good outlook on life, believing the God could and would heal him. I too, shared his optimism that God could and would heal him, where we differed was the definition of healing. My friend, God is taking you home to be with him.

If only I spent the rest of my days, each and every one, with that perspective as my motive for living. Pray for Todd.