Man of few words

Posting something's been on my mind, but not in my schedule lately. Doesn't mean I've been off the computer though. Much more a consumer than producer...sounds like the country as a whole, huh?

But this is worth the time to me. I am amazed by those who can say a lot in a few words. Those that know me well know why. It would only take a scanning of this blog to catch the drift. (And yes. I do know what Proverbs 10:19 says. Thanks.) That's why I admire blogs like 22 Words and also why I'll never, never be a Twitter-er or whatever you call yourselves.

That's also why I've been amazed and blessed by the work of Dr. David Murray over at the PRTS blog. Yeah. I had no idea what that was either. I found out that it's a seminary in Grand Rapids, MI...which was a surprise because I assumed from listening to the posts that I was watching some guy from his house in Scotland. Nope. Just another part of a great Scottish invasion for which I thank God. If you don't know what I mean get started with two guys who've been such a help to me this past year, Sinclair Ferguson and Alistair Begg.

Okay. See what I mean about the words? All that was just to set up this...Dr. Murray posts videos that are just a few minutes in length, usually about two, which point us in the right direction and provide so much to think on. This post from March 30 was called Children's Guide to the Tabernacle. Apparently, he was teaching on it and was challenged to put the truths that we learn about God from the building of the tabernacle into language that a child could understand.

You must watch the video. I wish I could embed it, but it's not coded and Ray's not here. (See below!) Here's my transcript of it with references...but put a little...okay, a lot...of Scottish brogue into the words as you read. And then click over and spend only 1:46 of your day being amazed at what the Lord was telling us in all those details of Exodus 25-30. Join me sometime in reading again through those passages we skim over. Take your kids through it and stand amazed with me that God would do so much to initiate a relationship with us.

Recently I was asked by a Sunday school teacher to provide a kid's guide to the tabernacle. Quite a challenging project, but in summary, here is my suggestion for summarizing the teaching of the tabernacle to young children.

• First of all, the Tabernacle as a whole says God lives with sinners.
• The Brass Altar says God saves sinners.
• The Laver, the washing bath, says God cleans sinners.
• The Show Bread says God feeds sinners. (Or actually, more deeply, God communes with sinners because the table and food were really a symbol for fellowship and communion. So the show bread says God communes with sinners.)
• The Lamp, God enlightens sinners.
• The Incense Altar, God hears sinners (as a type, of course, of prayer ascending).
• The Ark of the Covenant, God covenants with sinners or God promises sinners.
• And then we think of the Veil which covered the Most Holy Place which was eventually ripped in two in the temple at Christ's death...which says God is open to sinners now.

UPDATE: Thanks, Ray!!

Rubbin' it in

A reminder of why he's considered the best of the best...maybe in heaven God will let me flick my wrist and have this happen...



HT: Between Two Worlds

A word for us all

J. I. Packer is one of the men that has been instrumental in my understanding and love of our Savior. His books Knowing God and Praying fall into my top ten books to recommend while a couple of lesser known titles like A Grief Sanctified and Praying the Lord's Prayer are so short and so great on specific topics. If you get a chance to read him or hear him, you'll be blessed and served on how to consider Christ and Him crucified.

He's 83 now and still the Board of Governors' Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He served as Executive Editor of Christianity Today as well as serving as the General Editor of the ESV Study Bible which you already know I love so much from previous posts like this one.

I say all that to set up this little gem of a video...just three and half minutes of Packer looking into the lens and talking to someone who's a new believer in Jesus Christ. Join me under the conviction of running hard to return to that first blush of love so that we don't stand with those at Ephesus. These things he speaks of should be firmly rooted in most of us who are reading this...and therefore bearing fruit for those new believers God is giving birth to all around us. Where we're lacking, let's take off running with perseverance this race He's marked out for us. And if you've got some people around you who are new to this, here's some basics they'll need to run well alongside you. Get this to them and tell them it's their welcome from one of the giants of the faith.

5 months from now

That's when Cassie will wake up and head to her first college class at Baylor.

That's when it will hit us both that she's not coming back from vacation in just a couple of days...or home from the mission trip that she spent a month on. That first day...when she wakes up with almost no help from an alarm...when her heart will be jumping and her face beaming with smiles for everyone she sees. She'll be so excited. I know not only because she loves new things...new places...new people. She'll finally be starting what she's been waiting on for so long.

But 5 months? How quick is that?? 7 months ago school started on her senior year. That was yesterday to me. 18 years ago, she just learned to sit up on her own. Happened just last week. 23 years ago, I started my first college class...with a smile on my face and a bounce in my step. Cassie wasn't even a glimmer on the distant horizon of my plans for me. How long ago was that? About a month.

I've had a lot of people ask about Cassie leaving. Are we ready? How hard is it going to be? What do the girls think? Is she excited? Answers: Probably not. More than we know right now, but better than we might expect. Sad and excited for her. Oh, my, yes.

When they hear about how sad we all are, they usually try to offer sweet comfort. But I've noticed that everyone's answers come from the same place my thoughts try to go to...who Cassie is...what God's done in the past in her...how she's responded to teaching, training, experiences in her life. Everything you can see. You can hear them, can't you? She'll be fine. She'll love it there. She does so well with people. She's already shown so often that she'll make good decisions. She loves the Lord. She serves so many. She goes the extra mile. She'll only be 35 miles away. She'll be great.

Isn't that how we are? Look around us...try to find that hopeful place. See what we can see...and lean on it. I mean well when I do it to others. Show them in their lives where God's already worked. Show them how He's prepared them for the task ahead. I've got precedent in Scripture for it. But just one chapter later in Psalms God gives us the same word He showed me in Colossians last week. Here's both of them:

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD his God,
who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.
Psalm 146:5-7

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus
and of the love that you have for all the saints,
because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.
Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel...
Colossians 1:3-5

How far short my hope is usually placed! To hope in Cassie...to hope in past works of God...to hope in anything I can see is far below the truest hope I have for her. My Hope must be the Lord Himself. He is the creator of faith and faithfulness. It is He that will faithfully keep her until the end. He is the executor of justice. It is He that will guard her and protect her until the Day. How secure is my hope that is in heaven. How fleeting is any hope that is set here below.

He has given us good fruit to taste in Cassie's life that tell she is His and is on her way. But that fruit was not meant to be stored up for tomorrow. Like the manna that appeared to the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, what we have is today's...for today...and to give us remembrance of God who supplies every day. To store it up...to gather more than you needed for that day was a sin...and would turn to rot in your tent. Why would it be a sin? Because to gather more meant that you didn't trust the Lord...you doubted that God who was faithful today would be faithful tomorrow. So, you stored some up...just in case.

The idea that I would look to what God has done in the past for encouragement of hope isn't sin. That I would look for good fruit in Cassie's life to lead me to rejoicing in the life of Christ within her? That's certainly not sin. Paul spoke of it all the time like here and here. But Paul's trust...his faith...his hope in them wasn't built on what he could see in them and for them and from them. For me store up these things so I could feed on them in the fall when she's not here every day? That's not a position or a feeling that I should feel sympathy for and in fact is one to guard against...for at it's core what I'm doubting is not Cassie, but God. God's faithfulness is on trial. God's promises are at stake. God's ability to finish what He begins is what I have on trial day by day.

Charles Spurgeon put it like this:

Too many in the church of God regard unbelief as if it were a calamity commanding sympathy, rather than a fault demanding censure as well. . . . Doubts are among the worst enemies of your souls. Do not entertain them. Do not treat them as though they were poor forlorn travelers to be hospitably entertained, but as rogues and vagabonds to be chased from thy door. Fight them, slay them, and pray God to help thee to kill them, and bury them, and not even to leave a bone or a piece of a bone of a doubt above ground. Doubting and unbelief are to be abhorred, and to be confessed with tears as sins before God. We need pardon for doubting as much as for blasphemy. We ought no more to excuse doubting than lying, for doubting slanders God and makes him a liar. (HT: Pyromaniacs)

So, the question is will I be ready in 5 months to have my hope "built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness"? Will I say at that day that I "dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus name"? Will all other ground truly be sinking sand? Or will I be casting about for jars to store my wormy, smelly manna from yesterday?

5 months. 5 short months to set my gaze on Christ more firmly than it is. Help me, will you? When I falter...when I fall...remind me not of what He's done, but that He's done according to His steadfast love which will never fail. Remind me that He who began that good work in her is faithful. Remind me that Christ always...always...finishes what He starts. Set my gaze back up...higher than my flesh wants to look...to the One who never fails. Set my anchor more firmly in the bedrock of 2 Corinthians 1:18-22 by telling me that it is God who is faithful and it is God who established Cassie in Christ, and has anointed her and who has also put His seal on her and I both and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

I love to hear encouragement about how Cassie has blessed lives...to hear testimony of what Christ has done it her...I, like every other mom I know, love to hear praise of my girls. But it won't ground me...won't hold my weight when the days are dark. God in Christ will uphold me. And will never fail either of us...not now...and certainly not in 5 short months.

Affliction may be too strong of a word

One of my favorite parts of Scripture is when Paul shares his heart about the churches in Macedonia in 2 Corinthians 8:1-3...

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord...

That's what came to mind when the girls gave us their gift. They were so giggly...so thrilled to do it...truly bouncing with happiness. And it wasn't just at that moment. They asked us at the beginning of January to see if there was a weekend we could block out this semester and not have any plans those days. Why? we asked. We're not telling, just block it out, okay? Well, we agreed, but have wondered for weeks what the deal was.

Then came the secret meetings in Cassie's room...followed by huge grins as they came out. The almost daily giggles as they'd whisper to each other. But what really touched my heart about all this happened over the weeks of preparation. To give us this gift took hundreds of dollars...from three girls with no real money. Cassie has a job at the church which pays her for about 3 hours a week at minimum wage and babysits when she can. Aisley and Brennan both babysit sporadically. But it's not like they just gave a little off the top. Every time they got money...any money...they'd rush to Cassie's room...laughing, grinning, happy as could be they they could contribute to whatever it was they were planning.

I can't tell you how that blessed me week after week. And to say that it was a "severe test of affliction" is probably overstating it just a bit. But I promise you that it wasn't easy. They don't get allowances...never have. They have lots of wants, mostly aimed at tech stuff which is very expensive. And because we live off of a single paycheck from a public school, there's lots of daily stuff that they live without that a lot of their friends have or places they can't go because there's just no money for it. Which means that every dollar they make is usually pre-spent in their minds. But they gave it all up for us...to bless us. And they didn't do it begrudgingly. They did it with joy...with generosity...with blessing.

What a lesson for me tonight. What am I hoarding for myself because I have no greater vision than how I can throw it away on myself? Isn't there anyone out there that I love more than myself...for whom I would count it a joy...a privilege...to give to them instead of keeping it for me? Isn't there any gratitude in me that would serve to fuel giving? Can't I be like my girls? It's a good, challenging word for me.

Because that overflow didn't come out of their good, little hearts...as if they've got that little something extra. Notice how Paul put it when he wanted to spread the news of what happened in Macedonia. When giving like this occurs, it's because God got involved and poured out grace to them. And He did much more besides give to us...they told me that one of the amazing things about doing this was that they still have money left over. Somehow...some way...and they're not really sure how...God gave them abundantly more than they could have asked for...or even imagined. What a God we serve! I love that in giving this to us, He also gave them a really good lesson in how generous He can be when we pour out our lives for others. They all spoke in wonder that it happened the way it did.

How I praise Him tonight for His care of us all as Wayne and I make plans. I love that He put this in their hearts. I love that I'll be getting away with Wayne for the first time since our honeymoon almost 20 years ago! (The girls thought that was pretty pathetic...funny moment...I think they're resolved to do a couple of things differently in their own marriages!) I love that through it all, He reminded me that He owns everything and can move everything...we need only obey with joy. I love that He loves my girls enough to give them this message this early. I pray for this good seed to bear much fruit for them in their lives. What a difference three women who love to give away their lives can make on this world for the Kingdom. And if they'd like to do it by sending their Mom and Dad on vacation every now and then? Icing. Really, really sweet icing.

A grateful mama

Brennan, Cassie and Aisley with little Emma Kate

I love my girls. They make me laugh. They tell great stories. When they all start laughing together at the dinner table? There's nowhere in the world I'd rather be. They also love others well. I hear so often from others how helpful one of them has been. How joyous they were in serving. How quick they were to jump in. It is music to my ears to hear that they are showing off Christ so well in their world.

But if you're a mom, you know how it can be. You get more of the laughter than anyone else hears. But you also tend to see more of them when they are really tired...or really ticked off...or really...well...sinful. We're not different as parents (which explains why we can be snapping their heads off one minute and then answer the phone with a cheerful hello the next, right?). They may get our best, but too often what we say to our kids, we'd never say to someone else...at least not in that tone! There's something about being at home that tends to make us feel like we can just let loose. We're so careful with others...but not those who live closest to us.

No wonder that sometimes the home can be the place where service in the name of Christ is found least. Wayne and I have wanted that to be different and have had lots of conversations about it over the years. But we're no better at it than anyone else, but we long to try...to have hearts to serve our girls with the same intentionality that we serve those boys in Wayne's life or the women in mine.

But today I learned this lesson in a way we don't usually think of...from my girls. Today they gave us the gift of a weekend away...on them. Hotel room...envelopes with money for meals and gas and an extra envelope we've never had in our house..."Fun!" It came with instructions that said if we bring home any money, they'll lock us out of the house. Hilarious.

They wrote a note to explain. It's not for Christmas or anniversary or either of our birthdays they said...

...we're thankful for the representation of Christ in the home we have grown up in...You've both blessed us in countless ways and we'd like to try and show you a little blessing of our own! You work so hard to make sure that we are raised in the best and most God-like way and for that we know we are blessed! We love you so much!

Yes. I cried and cried. But I say this to you not only just to publicly thank them for thinking of us and showering us with love...but also to encourage you that God gives two unbelievable graces in our kids...really short memories and the ability to forgive their parents' sins. There have been countless times where we have needed both. But aren't little ones a model to us of this? We turn on them in frustration and five minutes later have them run to us with joy to show us something they've just discovered. Or you're whole attitude just screams when is bedtime! But instead of walking away harmed, they just lean in a little closer to snuggle...or even sweeter, wrap their arms around you and say Sorry, Mama. And I'm cut to the bone from the conviction of the Lord.

God gives us an amazing gift when He gives us kids...time for us to grow up as they grow. Your toddlers will remember almost nothing of our day to day activities...only big moments. It's not until they're much older that they will be able to remember whole conversations. So, those moments when you felt such guilt for your words, attitude, actions which fell so far short of what you know you could have given the Savior? There's such grace waiting for you. Turn around. Just say you're sorry and stand once more for Him. He will do such a good work in both you and your kids.

I've got a little more gratitude within me, but I'll start another post for that one.

I love free stuff

Here are a few of the really amazing offers going on around the web:

Justin Taylor over at Between Two Worlds wrote about a project called Page CXVI. They have taken hymns and remixed them with an Indie Rock sound that is wonderful. I greatly enjoyed listening to them last night. The best news is that right now you can download seven of their hymns for free. At the top of the website page you can preview the music.


This month amazingly the people over at the ESV Study Bible site are making all of the content available for free for everyone. If you own a print version of this Bible you can access this content with the code that came with the Bible. But for all of March everyone can see all of the amazing note, articles, maps, and other features that make this Bible so amazing. You can also listen to any of it while you study.


But here's the best part of what the ESV offers online. There is another site to access the Bible online by going through the publisher. And here is my favorite part...from this site you can download audio files of an text of Scripture free...whether you want a passage, single verse, or an entire book. This has been unbelievably helpful to me when I've been reading lately. I find I can really focus hard on the text when I'm reading along with someone else. And I'm seeing more in it than ever! I love it. And yes. They know you can do this!

To do it...just go to this site...click the "options" button...under audio options click whichever MP3 option you'd like. I am really enjoying David Cochran Heath which is the second option. Click save and type in the search bar whatever Scripture you'd like. I'm headed there to do 1 Peter 1. Right click on the word (Listen) and a small window should pop with the option to "Save link as..." Click that and save it wherever you have your music files under the Scripture reference. Repeat for however many you want! I've always wanted to be able to listen to Scripture on my iPod but could never afford to...now I can have whatever I want when I want it. Fantastic.


For an even more comprehensive list of what else ESV offers for free just click here. And don't worry...Justin Taylor is an editor for Crossway and the managing editor of the ESV Study Bible.


Last but not least, Christian Audio's free download of the month is Don Whitney's Spriritual Disciplines. He covers everything from reading and prayer to worship and fasting to silence and stewardship...with more between. It's a fantastic book that is full of practical wisdom for incorporating Christ in more areas of our lives. I've greatly enjoyed it.

Not quite how Piper puts it

Lacrae's version of gutsy guilt:

Gutsy guilt

I want to linger a little more on the glorious truth of Romans 8:1 that I mentioned in the last post. How is it when we sin that no matter how deep, persistent or heinous those sins may be, God could still look with favor on us? How do we use that knowledge to rise up from our sins ready to fight the good fight of faith? How can we use it when people look down on us for our sins? How do we proclaim Christ instead of ourselves when we fight off sin in our lives?

"Gutsy guilt" is a Piper term I learned in his book, When I Don't Desire God. He puts it like this in a sermon on Romans 8:1 (emphasis mine)...

Now that is a picture of how to think and act when you sin against your Father whose whole disposition toward you is almighty mercy and omnipotent love. He will not always handle you gently. But he will always love you. And always be for you and not against you.

So we take our sins seriously. We hate them. We see them as a contradiction of who we are in Christ and a contradiction of our Father's love. We confess our sins (1 John 1:9). We look to the cross where all our pardon and righteousness was fully secured. We accept the Father's displeasure and discipline, and may dwell in darkness for a season. But if our enemy rejoices and says to us in our night of sorrow, "See, God is against you. He is angry. You are guilty and under his condemnation," then we will say, with the authority of Romans 8:1 and on the basis of Jesus Christ's death and righteousness, and in the words of Micah 7:

"Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy. Though I fall I will rise;

Though I dwell in darkness, the Lord is a light for me.

I will bear the indignation of the Lord

Because I have sinned against Him,

Until He pleads my case and executes justice for me.

He will bring me out to the light, And I will see His righteousness."

That is what I mean by gutsy guilt. I know of no other way to persevere in the Christian life in view of our constant failings - no other way to stay married for Christ's sake, to rear children, and be single and chaste, and maintain hope and fruitfulness in ministry, than this gutsy guilt: When I fall I will rise . . . though I have sinned, the very one against whom I have sinned will plead my case and execute justice for me - not against me, but FOR me! Oh, love this gospel, [Church]! Love and live this gospel!

The question is whether we will live the gospel. We must believe...finally and fully...that Christ really did all that was necessary to appease the wrath, displeasure, disappointment, despising of God. On our bad days when sin seems to reign over us we must hold firmly that God is not against us. When we have those rare good days when we seek Him, we must believe in our hearts that we've not added to the righteousness of Christ.

Christ is our righteousness! Not our good works. We can never replace what Christ has done. We can never undo what Christ has done. Say it to yourself...over and over. Say with John Bunyan...My righteousness is in heaven...the same yesterday, today and forever! Listen to John Piper once more from the same sermon...

So I say it again: what God wants us to understand from Romans 8:1 when he says through the apostle Paul, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," is that all of God's condemning wrath and all of his omnipotent opposition against us in our sin has been entirely replaced by almighty mercy and omnipotent assistance. In Christ Jesus God is always for you. Always! This is where Paul is going in Romans 8. He gets there in verse 31 and says, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us!" His point is that in Christ Jesus "no condemnation" means that God is always omnipotently for us and not against us. Always!

Hold on to that truth. Rejoice in it. Exalt it. Love it. Live it today.

You're just not that special

One of the most disabling deceptions that Satan perpetrates over the church is being revealed in so many women around me. And I am not immune. How is it that we can be in a crowd of people committed to our Savior and still feel so alone?

In large part I'm coming to see that it is because we all believe that where we are is unique to us. No one struggles with the things we struggle with. No one would believe it if we told them the truth of who we are. No one would stand with us if they knew...I mean, really knew...who we were.

What if they knew about...

• the apathy that fills you each Sunday morning during worship?
• the fact that you haven't been one on one with God in a decade? Or two?
  
• the bitterness you still feel at the loss of a loved one?
• the unbelief that leaves you questioning what everyone else seems to grasp so easily?
• the fact that you say I'll pray for you almost every day and can't remember it five minutes after you leave them?
• the fear you have not for yourself but what God might do to your children?
• the envy that fills your heart for what God's given another?
• the marriage that feels more dead than alive?
• the fact that you've been a Christian for decades but have never...never...even tried to learn His Word?
• the deep despair you feel about yawning blackness that stays only just off to the side but threatens to pull you under every day?
• how hard you work, hoping to earn just a little favor for God...while knowing all along that it'll never be enough?
• the fact that you don't even give God a thought really as you go about your day?
  

And through it all, the loneliness grips you even among friends who love you because no one struggles like you. So, you go through the motions of life. Asking the same question and getting the same answer...Hi. How are you? Good. How 'bout you? Good. And you walk away once more knowing deep within you that she is good, but you lied. Oh, how Satan would love for you to believe it.

But the truth is you are not alone. Nothing you're going through is any different than what we all struggle with. I mean it. But I'm not sure I can convince you. I've learned that even if I shared every struggle I've ever had, you'd probably say that I overcame it, but you never will. Or I may have felt it a little, but I have no idea how bad it is in you. Or you'll just flat out deny it because you've never seen it in my life. Even if I share that I'm going through the very same thing you are right now, you'll have confidence that I'll get through it, but leave still knowing that you never will.

So, let me see if I can convince you from His Word that you are just not that special...that the way you are is not something new to God...that the way you're wired or what you're going through is something that He's already made provision for.

First read this with me...

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

Your sinfulness is not a shock to God. Frankly, you have no idea how bad you really are. It is one of His manifold graces that He doesn't reveal all that we are in one huge lump for we, like Isaiah, would be undone. What has been revealed about you isn't any different than what resides in me. When you look at another and say that no one could possibly understand your sinfulness, your shortfalls, your struggles...you deny this very truth. You are one amongst us. A sinner. Saved by grace alone.

Again...

No temptation has overtaken you
that is not common to man.
God is faithful,
and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability,
but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape,
that you may be able to endure it.
1 Corinthians 10:13

It's just common, ordinary temptation. And it's common to all mankind. Everyone battles. Everyone has to fight. No one gets a pass. Not you. Not me. Not Paul...

For I do not understand my own actions.
For I do not do what I want,
but I do the very thing I hate.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.
For I have the desire to do what is right,
but not the ability to carry it out.
For I do not do the good I want,
but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
Romans 7:15, 18-19

Sound familiar? But are you dismissing Paul like you'd dismiss me? Don't you know that God wrote these Words so that you would find help in time of need? He didn't have to inspire Paul to write about his own personal struggles. What was written was for your sake as an example for you to persevere in the faith...to know that you are not alone. If an apostle struggled? One who'd seen Jesus face to face? Well then, you and I can be sure that it will happen to us.

So, how did Paul fight through it? Just know that it's common and keep trying harder? No, no, no. He did what Micah and Jeremiah taught him to do from the Scriptures he had learned. But now he could do it in a cross-centered way...

Wretched man that I am!
Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Romans 7:24

He knows that he is the lowest of the low. He knows that nothing good dwells within him. He knows that he will have to fight for the rest of his life to resist temptation. And he knows he'll never win on his own. What can he do? What hope does he have? His very next words reveal the secret...

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
There is therefore now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Romans 7:25a, 8:1

Believe it? It's His Word. Who's right...Him or you? You stand before the throne as a justified sinner. You are not yet what you will be. But you are not what you were. And you do not stand alone. The rest of the body stands with you at the foot of the cross having no righteousness of our own. We are all equal there both in our sin...and in the grace to withstand our sin.

It is the truth that we must walk in when we speak to one another. We need to say when declaring our own sin...I know you'll understand that I'm struggling to have the faith to believe that God can get me through this. Pray for me that I won't fall.

And if they do react in a way that makes you feel stupid, alone or far from grace? Walk away uncondemned and find another. They haven't changed the truth. And don't walk away angry with them. Have compassion. Remember to keep in mind that you are just like them as you know they are just like you. They just don't know it yet. They will fall one day. Be ready to meet them with the truth that will bring them hope.

And we need to say when someone shares with us their sin...Of course, I understand. I'm just like you. But I can see the way through it. Take my hand. I'll help you to walk. We'll get through this together in Christ.

No gasps. No shocked faces. Just a deep, deep awareness that we are them...and would be stuck in the mire with them today, if not for His grace. If you can see, help someone who's blind. And if you are blind, find someone who's been given some sight. After a while, we'll all be standing together...hand in hand...until we all attain to the unity of the faith...to mature manhood...no longer deceived by the craftiness of schemes to keep us believing that we are alone in the fight for faith.

Lord, I want to be out of breath for You

Oh, what a message this little trailer carries. I would love to attend the conference it promotes, but that's not why I want you to see this. It will resonate with you. I promise.




Can you feel yourself right with them? Living your life...riding along...doing the next thing next. But we have inside of us a treasure, a hope of glory. We were made to know...let us press on to know...the Lord. And we don't need a conference invitation. He invites us to meet Him again right here, right now, right where you are, reading this. He has not changed. He is the same, yesterday, today and forever.

And He waits for you...not to punish you. He did that to His Son.
He waits for you...not to afflict you. He did that to His Son.
He waits for you...not to despise you. He did that to His Son.
He waits for you...not to wound you or to crush you. He did that to His Son.

He waits for you...to be gracious to you.
He waits for you...has exalted Himself for you...to show you mercy.

So, let's run to Him. Let's return to Him. Let's renew our passion for Him. Let's recall Him to mind and find hope and rest for our souls.

Took a second for this one to click

And then it was so funny. If it takes you a minute to see the humor, focus on the score at the end.



I can't tell you how many times we've been watching some sporting event, usually football, when a guy breaks out into dance (and sometimes song and dance) after a play. If you're sitting beside Wayne you'll hear a disgusted mutter...Come on. Act like you've done it before.

We love to see guys who don't think a tackle is worthy of an Academy Award or one sack out of 75 attempts is newsworthy. Hilarious to see it so very vividly portrayed...and he's celebrating over PING-PONG! Down here in Texas, that's not a sport...that's not even a game. It's a...I don't even know what. A thing you send the kids to play so the grown-ups can talk sort of thing. Takes a real secure guy to dance after a ping-pong point...especially point one.