What If!?

 Growing up I thought my life was one of ease, a life of self in which I tried to control everything, and a life spent living out the moment.  As I grew up…..So much changed!  As a friend of mine once said, "How's that working for you?"

I had to embrace difficulty, care for others and surrender to a greater cause, and learn the life of the eternal instead of the temporary.  I was searching, hoping that one day someone would call me to an adventure worth dying for.  I wasn't searching for God to take me to heaven, but hopes that there was more to this life, than just existing.  I was looking for someone I could follow.  It wasn't until I found Jesus at age 25 that I found the One I wanted to be like.

In becoming more like Jesus.. the Shift from who I thought I was became much more dramatic than one could imagine.  What If!?  Is that possible!?

Jon Tyson explains so well: Jesus left the ease of Heaven to embrace the difficulty of earth and of the cross; Jesus humbled and emptied himself, and he lived for others, not just himself; Jesus moved into a life of obscurity for us; Jesus surrendered, not trying to remain in control of his situation; and Jesus lived for eternal rewards, not a temporary reality.

Wow!  As Mary said, “May it be done unto me!”  

Father, empower me today to surrender to Your Will, Discipline Grace and Joy of Living fully Alive!  Amen.

The Genius of Grace

If God, who has every right to find us guilty, refuses to do so, how can we not forgive one another?  If God, who sees everything we’ve ever done and could easily drown us in our guilt and shame, seeks only to make us whole and give us freedom, how can that not be our intention toward one another?

Even in our current environment, we have what is now known as “cancel culture.”  We ransack the history of every tweet a person has ever written, every statement a public personality has ever made, any joke a comedian has ever delivered, or any mistake a person has ever made in the past, looking for ammunition to end their careers.  We do not allow for change, or growth, or simply the imperfection of being human.

Condemning is easy.  It’s also ugly and inelegant.  Grace makes both the giver and the recipient more beautiful…. Grace believes in your future.

Erwin McManus

The Resurrection and Justice

 When Jesus rose from the dead, he came as the first installment of the power of God, which will renew the world at the end of history.  The Bible tells us that, at that time, God will not just save individuals and discard the world as if were an unimportant shell or chaff.  Rather, "the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God" (Ro. 8:21).  All the effects of sin - all the decay - of the world will be healed.  Not only will there be physical liberation from disease, aging, and death, but there will be social liberation from the poverty, war, racism, and crime that infest our world now, as well as psychological liberation from the fear, guilt, shame, and despair that infect us now.  All things will finally be mended, put fully right.  We ourselves will be made new, but we will also receive a renewed world in which to live with Christ in our resurrected bodies......  In the new creation we will know Jesus, the infinite fountain of love.  We will love one another for his sake  and for their sake.  All relationships, then, will finally be right and just.  So 2 Pet. 3:13 says, "But God has promised us a new heavens and earth where justice will rule."

So, the resurrection means that the liberating, repairing power of God is here now, through the risen Christ and His presence in our lives through the Holy Spirit.  We have not been saved just to be safe, but saved in order to serve.

NT Wright says, Easter means that in a world where injustice, violence, and degradation are endemic, God is not prepared to tolerate such things - and that we will work and plan, with all the energy of God, to implement victory of Jesus over them all.  Take away Easter and Karl Marx was probably right to accuse Christianity of ignoring problems of the material world.  Take it away and Freud was probably right to say Christianity is wish fulfillment.  Take it away and Nietzsche probably was right to say it was for wimps.  

But if Easter happened, it is the secular theories of Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche that will eventually find themselves in the ashbin of history.

Tim Keller

Beautiful Paradox of Jesus’ Great Reversal

 He was sold, to buy us back; captive to deliver us; condemned to absolve us; he was made a curse for our blessing, sin offering for our righteousness; marred that we may be made fair; he died for our life; so that by Him fury is made gentle, wrath appeased, darkness turned into light, fear reassured, despisal  despised, debt canceled, labor lightened, sadness made merry, misfortune made fortunate, difficulty easy, disorder ordered, division united, ignominy ennobled, rebellion subjected, intimidation intimidated, ambush uncovered, assaults assailed, force forced back, combat combated, war warred against, vengeance avenged, torment tormented, damnation damned, the abyss sunk into the abyss, hell transfixed, death dead, mortality made immortal.  In short, mercy has swallowed up all misery, and goodness all misfortune.

 John Calvin

GIVE 'EM HELL!

 I remember sitting in the shower room when my coach in his pep talk ended with, “Give ‘Em Hell!”  We ran out pumped up ready to defeat the enemy!

At 25, I was called to reach young people across America to help them discover freedom and eternal life through becoming a follower of Jesus.

At that time I realized I better get to know the One who called me through His Word.  I quickly learned that I was given a gift called Faith.  When I used it to believe in Jesus, I stepped into a whole new dimension of existence.  My present was altered by the Spirit of Jesus coming in with power and understanding to create a new reality.  I was no longer alone, dirty and sinful.  Instead, I was loved, forgiven and made a container to bring the message of hope.  

We all have the possibility to tap the source who created us by faith, to not only bring good out of present struggles, but to be captured by His Story of creating new life and living forever.  

So transformation begins today and will intensify even greater when Jesus physically joins us to restore and recreate all things lost and destroyed.

I had an old man shout at me one time as I was running out on stage, “Paul, Give them Heaven!”

I understood!

Beautiful Resistance

 Jon Tyson asks the question, How would things change if you resolved to rebel against your own indifference and embody the things you long to see in the world?  If you resolve that you would pursue beauty and resist brokenness?  That you would resist idolatry with worship, exhaustion with rest , apathy with hunger, fear with hospitality, contempt with honor, hate with love, privilege with sacrifice, and cynicism with celebration?  If your life became a parable of what happens when someone lives with integrity and in a community no matter the cost?

God is looking for a people to live this way, in spite of the hopelessness around them.  Those He can use to inspire others, those who pursue His pleasure in a culture of compromise.  

Will you respond to that call?