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Change of Address

~ godisnotlikeyou ~ Leave a comment

We tend to forget that Jesus’ mission was to destroy the works of the devil. That’s why he came. See 1 John 3:8

And part of that destruction was the rescue operation of God’s people who lived in darkness and were enslaved by the devil. Jesus came in like a warrior, attacked the enemy, destroyed him, and liberated God’s people.

How did he do it? 

First, by living a perfect life of obedience to God’s laws in our place.

Second, by paying the price for our sins by dying on the cross for us.

Third, by being raised from the dead and taking us with him.

We did not merit any of this.

We are God’s choice. See Ephesians 1 & Romans 9.

It was God the Father who gave us to God the Son before the foundation of the world. It was His choice.

It was God the Son who willingly left heaven and came to earth to be our Substitute.

And it’s God the Holy Spirit who lives in us to unite us to Christ and all his benefits.

We used to live in the world, but God took us out of it and put us in His kingdom. We have a new address. We breathe a new air, live a new life, and love God out of gratitude.

We possess of dual citizenship. Heaven and earth. Blessings now, fulfillment later.

Go out and tell somebody the rescue has happened!

Talk to me.

 

Not Here

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I have two friends who are suffering physically and mentally. One suffers excruciating pain down her right leg as the result of a stroke. The other is bipolar and refuses to take any medication for it. Both insist that God heal them directly. So far he hasn’t even though they pray fervently for it.

Both suffer from believing a lie. That type of mental anguish is worse than the physical ailment. This lie is dispensed every Sunday in church like the drinks at the coffee bar. It’s called having your best life now. It’s a theology of glory. God is supposed to keep us healthy, wealthy, and satisfied Christians.  Broken

But God has promised no such thing this side of heaven. What we long for – perfect health, perfect harmony in our relationships, perfect families and perfect joy – will be a reality when we’re living in the new heavens and the new earth, but not here.

While the longings of our hearts are right, our timing is off. This is the wilderness we’re trudging through, just like the Israelites did. Canaan was their destination, not some plot of sand with a well and a palm tree. Like them, we are headed to where all our longings will be fulfilled, but at the moment we keep our sandals on and keep walking.

The only one who had his best life was Jesus because he lived in heaven. But he willingly left that behind to live his worst life for 33 years. There’s reason why Isaiah describes him as a Man of Sorrows. We never read of Jesus laughing or telling a joke. He lived with suffering every day. The worst kind in the rejection of his own people he came to save. Day in and day out he suffered with people’s unbelief and hatred.

He owned nothing except the clothes on his back. He went hungry. He wept. And yet with this example we’re taught to expect God to give us everything he never gave his Son.

We hate living ordinary lives. We crave notoriety, we demand to live our potential, we love unearthing the divine spark within. Except there’s nothing biblical in any of it. It’s worldliness disguised as philosophical fast food.

The only Person who lived up to his potential was Jesus. We can’t because sin holds us back.

The only One whose life was not ordinary was Jesus’s. Ours are routine and unexceptional every day.

The One who lived by God’s every law was Jesus thereby meriting heaven. We live to break every law and merit hell.

Knowing this, we still demand our best life now. It’s insanity. No wonder we’re depressed and despairing.

The only course correction is to read the bible with fresh eyes and ask God for new understanding of life under heaven. Who is with me?

Talk to me.

 

Stay Needy

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How does one live in God’s kingdom? What does that look like?

If you read Matthew 19: 13-15  you’ll see how Jesus responded to his disciples’ rebuke to parents who wanted Jesus to bless their children. Children had no status in those days. The people of respect were the adults, especially the old men. That was the Jewish culture. But Jesus turned that upside down by insisting that his kingdom was for children.

Really? Children are needy and helpless. They frighten easily. They need protection and care. And they’re messy!

God’s kingdom is precisely for those who are helpless and insignificant and marginalized.

The nobodies are more important than the somebodies. God’s kingdom is not for the movers and shakers.

The kingdom is right-side up while the world is upside down, so no matter what the world tells us is important, or who we should be, it’s probably not true. The disciples reacted as the culture of the day demanded, but Jesus reversed that.

So God’s handbook says, “Become like a little child.” We’re not important. We’re unworthy servants at best. We must look out for others first. Esteem them better than ourselves.

Christ showed us how. He was the king serving his subjects. The saint serving sinners.

We can’t to do it by the law. Knowledge is not enough. There’s something broken in all of us. We don’t need a better you. We’ve been promised a new you in the gospel.

Christ covered our sins by his blood. He’s our Passover. All our sins were imputed to him and he died for them on the cross. And all Christ’s righteousness has been imputed to us. The grand exchange described in 2 Corinthians 5:21. We no longer carry the burden of sin and death on our shoulders. We can now skip and dance like little children in the playground of God’s kingdom.

Do you believe this?   Related image

If you’re not sure, receive Christ by faith today. It’s not about being smarter. Or stronger. It’s about feeling helpless like a little child and clinging to him for life.

Be helpless. It’s okay.

God’s kingdom is full of needy ones. Stay that way.

Talk to me.

Adoption Matters

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I’ve known a few people in my life who were adopted as children and the longing of their hearts was always to meet their real biological parents.

Everyone wants to know where they came from. That’s a common desire.

As a Christian, have you ever asked yourself where you came from? And why was it that God chose you to be in his family?

Let me start by saying that it had nothing to do with you!

Once upon a time, before the world was made, God decided to give his Son a people as a gift.

Those people were known only to God before they were ever created.

These people had one common purpose: they would glorify God by imaging the Son.

If you have faith in Christ today, you are one of those people.

God chose you.  photo-37

God drew you to Christ.

God clothed you in Christ.

For the purpose of being holy and blameless.

It was God’s love to his Son that he adopted us into his family for the glory of his grace.

The fact you love the Lord and believe in him was all God’s plan for you.

Check it out. Read Ephesians chapter 1.

And start praising!

Talk to me.

 

 

 

 

Re-Write Your Story

~ godisnotlikeyou ~ 3 Comments

Once upon a time stories were for children. Now they seem to be usurped by almost everybody – big business, airlines, pharmaceutical companies, the automobile industry, everything is fair game even down to the toothpaste yuo use.

The truth is we’re wired for story. Our brains respond to them. And for some of you, you are a slave to your story. It’s the one you play in your head everyday. It can be a traumatic event, an emotional decision, a deep hurt, an unfairness, whatever it was that left a wound in your soul.

Instead of replaying it over and over again, replace it with a better story.

Sounds crazy?

It’s not.

What better story, you ask?  IMG_1415

The one that has you in Christ’s story. It’s the one that starts like this:

Once upon a time God created a perfect world and handed it over to his children, Adam and Eve to take care of it, but then they disobeyed him and plunged themselves and everybody after them into sin. When God saw the mess they had made, he realized only he could fix it. So he sent his perfect Son to earth in the form of a perfect man to live and do what Adam and Eve and the rest of us failed to do. Jesus lived to please God and then died on the cross to pay the price for your sins. His perfect life and record is now yours as a gift from God to you. All you need is faith in Christ to get it. The moment you receive that gift you step into Christ’s story.

What is true of you now?

You have a new Father who loves you. He is unlike any earthly father you’ve ever known.

You have a Savior who fixed your biggest problem – your sin that kept you from God.

You have a new identity – you are a child of God with all its privileges, including an inheritance.

You have a new family – your brothers and sisters in Christ.

You have a new future – living in the new heavens and the new earth for an eternity.

You have new support – the church.

You have a calling – the Holy Spirit has given you spiritual gifts to serve God with.

So what are you waiting for?

Dump the old story today and start telling yourself the new one!

Talk to me.

How Not to Climb the Corporate Ladder

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You know the bible is real when you read verses 35-37 in Mark 10.

Jesus has just finished telling his disciples the horrible death that awaits him in Jerusalem, but instead of sympathy or concern, James and John ask for a promotion. They want the power seats in heaven. When the others find out what they’re up to, they become indignant because they didn’t think of it first most likely. Bible4

The focus is ripped away from Jesus’ death and lands on human ambition. It affords Jesus an opportunity to teach his disciples what it takes to live in his kingdom.

To be a bully, to seek your own status, and to be only interested in your own agenda is the world’s way.

As a disciple you seek to be nothing, a servant ready to help others. Just like Jesus. Why was he on his way to Jerusalem? So he could die in our place on the cross for our sins. The sins of James and John. The sins of all his people.

I’m amazed at Jesus’ patience with his own.

Thank God because I’m just like James and John.

I’m committed to me. My goals. My honor.

Every once in a while I catch myself serving others.

I wish it was the reverse.

That’s why I need a Savior.

And that’s why he’s given me his perfect record.

Because I need it!

Talk to me.

 

 

We’ve Got It Wrong

~ godisnotlikeyou ~ 3 Comments

The Christmas extravaganzas are in full bloom.

I can understand commercial hoopla to allure shoppers into stores.

But what makes me cringe is when churches produce musicals that rival something you’d see in Vegas.

Church hoopla

Contrast it with what most people in the world have to celebrate the holiday with:

fireplace2 (3)

 

And now consider the lowly birth of Christ – the real historical narrative in all four gospels.

Where would you rather be?

How To Have a Winning Resume

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Have you read some online resumes lately?

The candidates sound like they walk on water.

By the time they’re 25, they have a Master’s degree and a PhD, with work experience since kindergarten.  photo(66)

And let’s not overlook the myriad of tech certificates that make them eligible for the most exciting jobs out there.

Have you ever read a resume that included a person’s failures? Of course not. That would be suicide.

Everybody wants to be perfect.

Some people want it so badly they’re willing to lie and cheat to appear that way.

In today’s competitive job market, unless you dazzle and out-perform your competitors, you could end up on the street before you even get a chance to start.

In case you’re thinking this is only true for recent college graduates seeking employment, the truth is all of us are crafting our resumes internally so we look our best.

The fact is we’re addicted to perfection.

You and I know we can’t be perfect, but we try anyway. We labor for a verdict of approval from all who matter in life.

Except there’s a huge problem with that.

Our mothers might give us high marks because they love us no matter what, but if we look to God, who is the ultimate approval giver, his verdict is not so good.

In fact the verdict stinks.

“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” – Romans 3:10-12 ESV

We’re in deep weeds and no amount of charitable deeds is going to convince God otherwise.

The truth is we were made to live with God’s acceptance.

“Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God…” – Psalm 146:5 NKJV

Who you are in Jesus defines you.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ…” – Ephesians 1:3 NKJV

By accepting God’s provision for sin in Jesus,

God smiles on you.

God welcomes you.

And Jesus’ perfect record becomes yours.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a winning deal to me.

How The Gospel Changes Suffering – Part 2

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In the last post, Part 1, one of the things we covered was what not to do when you’re suffering. If you’re suffering through no fault of your own, then don’t waste your time trying to ask why. It will make you turn inward and brood. That’s heaping misery upon misery, which is exactly what the devil wants because then you will be paralyzed and ineffective.

So send the devil packing.

Both Jesus and Peter explicitly stated that tribulation is part of the journey of living in this world until we get to heaven.

Nobody escapes it.

So don’t be shocked by it.

Paul, who never did anything half-way, took it a step further. He said he wanted to share in the sufferings of Christ.

There is a deep fellowship to be had with Jesus when we suffer.

Paul mentions three advantages:

1) Paul said he suffered the loss of all things in order to gain Christ. He gave up his Jewish lineage and education and status for the richness of knowing his Savior.

2) Paul no longer counted on his law-keeping to gain God’s approval. Instead, he threw that away for a life of faith in Christ because he wanted the Lord’s righteousness as his garment, and not anything he conjured up.

3) Paul’s life of faith depended on the power of Jesus’ resurrection and with that came suffering. Suffering the death of all things that the world esteems dear. Suffering persecution, rejection and humiliation for the sake of Christ. And finally, suffering in death itself.

There is a deep mystery in all of this and few enter into this circle.

If God calls you to this, you are indeed on sacred ground.

Leave Your Status at the Door

~ godisnotlikeyou ~ 6 Comments

In continuing with the theme of God’s kingdom, it is here that we can live status-free.

The world jostles for position all the time. It starts in the family. There’s a favorite aunt, or a special cousin. There are the relatives nobody likes, and there are others that everybody adores.

Then there’s school. The cool, the popular, and the geeks.

College is no better. Ivy league vs. state universities. Private vs. community colleges. Yale sounds better than Berkeley, Stanford more elitist than Cal State.

Once you get into the work force, you quickly slam into the status levels there. It’s called management and labor. The two great divides.

The only place on earth where this isn’t true is in God’s kingdom. There we have one head – Jesus. The rest of us are all brothers and sisters. We came into the kingdom on the same playing field – through the cross. We stay in the kingdom through no merit of our own, but solely on the merits of Christ and what he has done for us.

There is no room for posturing, snobbery, or reputation.

But there is plenty of room for compassion, love and service to one another.

Next time you’re tempted to elevate or belittle yourself – both are sin – remember that your life is defined by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

He’s the ruler of the universe. You can rub shoulders with him!