Category Archives: Blog

On That Day

Two blind men following Him around seeking mercy. “Do you believe that I can do this?” (Matthew 9:28)

pistis. It means “belief with the predominate idea of trust (or confidence) …” (Strong’s)

“Now without faith it is impossible to please God…” (Hebrews 11:6) Same word. Same meaning.

But there is a scene that Jesus describes that puts the pistis rubber to the roman road.

The people in this scene are “many”. The place is before the throne. The time is on that day.

On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in Your name, drive out demons in Your name, and do many miracles in Your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from Me, you lawbreakers!’ (Matthew 7:22-23)

The fact that He called them lawbreakers tells us that they were still under the law, not under grace, and therefore, they were not saved.

The many who will say Lord, Lord will be those doings works while remaining under the law because they put their trust in their works and not in Christ. They used the name of Jesus while not actually knowing Him or being known by Him. The fact that they were were casting out demons and doing miracles did not mark them as belonging to Christ. Even Satan can do miracles.

“The coming of the lawless one is based on Satan’s working, with every kind of miracle, both signs and wonders serving the lie, and with every wicked deception among those who are perishing.” (2 Thessalonians 2:9)

So, to the one who thinks you can do enough good things to make it to heaven, please, lean in for just a minute.

You can’t. You can’t do enough. You can’t prophesy enough, do enough miracles, serve the poor enough, be kind enough, or good enough. You can’t give away enough stuff, pray enough, fast enough, or cast out enough demons. No matter how long you live, you will never do enough to earn one single thing from God, especially salvation.

Because on that day, your eternity will not depend on what you did or didn’t do. It will only depend on whether or not you trusted in Jesus’ atoning work on the cross to be enough.

pistis. Full trust, full dependence, full confidence in His blood to be enough for your salvation. His atonement to be the finished work on your behalf. His payment of your debt. His righteousness for your unrighteousness.

The scene Jesus painted for His disciples of the “many” standing before Him, will be a scene that comes to life one day. On that day, I pray that you and I will stand before Him with only one claim to eternity. His blood.

Thank You Jesus, for saving a wretch like me. May every work I do on this earth be done out of love for You, not a need to be good enough for You.

From Have to Have Not

I have a cute house. Nothing fancy, but a very decent house in a very decent neighborhood. Know what I don’t have? Nice carpet.

I have a cute truck. I’d been wanting one for years and now I have one and I love it to death. But it doesn’t have the back up screen, so I have to twist myself around to see what’s behind me when I’m backing up.

I’m kind of smart, but I don’t have a degree. I’m a writer, but I’m not published (yet). I’m fearfully and wonderfully made, but I’m not very tall, or thin, or…

Do you see my problem? My haves always lead to my have nots. But I’m not the first.

Genesis. First chapters. God made everything, called it good, gave it all to the man and the woman, which He had also created. He told them they could have it all, gave them dominion and told them to make lots of babies (be fruitful and multiply – same thing). To everything, He said yes, except for one thing. One tree.

And then chapter three happened. The devil came, as the devil always does. Here is that conversation –

“He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’” “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman. “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”

First, he asked a question that was a lie. God never said they couldn’t eat from any tree, He said they couldn’t eat from one tree. So he drew the woman into the conversation by giving her something to correct.

Then, he contradicted God and made Him out to be a liar, planting the seed that He was withholding from her.

And finally, she saw the tree as something it was not – good for her. It took one conversation with the enemy to convince her that something deadly was something good (and boy ain’t that a sermon for another day). And in all of this, I see one important thing that relates to this conversation we’re having today.

The devil shifted the woman’s focus from her have, to her have not. From God, to herself. And he has never changed his methods, because why change what works?

So now I’m trying to take my focus back. To enter my home with a thankful heart rather than a critical eye. To look around in wonder at the many ways God has blessed me and refuse to believe He has held back from me anything that is good. To trust that if He hasn’t given me something, then it would not be good for me to have it. I’m trying to shift my gaze off of me and back to Him because that is how I will see the goodness of God in the land of the living. By actually seeing His goodness, instead of seeing what I don’t have.

Who we are, what we have been given, it is abundantly good, until the enemy is able to shift our focus from have to have not.

Don’t let him do that. Fight back. Be thankful. Trust His goodness.

The Narrowing

It was subtle, so I didn’t notice it at first. And then one day I looked around and realized that most of the things I wanted when I was much younger, I no longer want. But it goes deeper than that.

I was having breakfast with a friend recently and she asked me what I’m looking for in community. I told her that I had come to a place of wanting to be around people who just want to talk about Jesus, that not much else interests me, and I wasn’t sure why. She nodded in understanding and dubbed it “a narrowing” and that term just felt so perfect. A narrowing.

When I was in my young decades – 20’s, 30’s and 40’s, the space of my life was filled with oh so many things. Family and work. Fears and pain and wants and dreams, and a past I was trying to outrun. At the far end of my 20’s, Jesus moved into that tattered, crowded space, and I had no idea of the narrowing that had begun and now, three and half decades later, I see it, and it is a joy to behold.

My narrowing is still in motion, and it’s painful at times, but man do I find it to be beautiful. I wish for a narrowing for us all. Instead of the wideness of everything this life has to offer, I want us to find life in the narrow space of the one thing, and to feel utterly satisfied in that space.

“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple.” Psalm 27:4

It is the space of His presence, where the need for company narrows to just the One, and the desire to be with Him eclipses every other desire.

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” He said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” Mark 10:21

It is the culling of our idols. Letting go of the one thing most of us lack—the giving of it all, especially that which is most dear. The ability to lay down what we have held so close. Everything that gives us our sense of security, or allows us to feel in control. What provides our comfort and gives us value. It is a painfully necessary narrowing, this one.

“The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41-42

When the many things get crowded out by the one thing. In this narrow space, we find the value of being, over doing and we finally understand that doing must flow from being, or it will wear us out.

 He answered, “Whether or not he’s a sinner, I don’t know. One thing I do know: I was blind, and now I can see!” John 9:25

My thirst to know the ins and the outs and the greek and the hebrew and the what the when and the where has been narrowed to one thing. I was blind and now I see and I want to know the God who did that. This has been the continual, sweetest, narrowing for me – the pursuit of the heart of my Father, who pursued my heart first.

Sometimes I still strain to make space for other things, only to find that those things do nothing to satisfy the true longing in my soul. So I pray for the narrowing to continue in me. And I pray it for you.

May you find that God has been narrowing your life in all the best, even painful, but beautiful ways.

The Weight of a Life That’s Not Mine

Life gets heavy when it becomes about you.

It was a Holy Spirit whisper that won’t go away, so I know I need to talk about it, because I think there’s a lot of heaviness going on.

I remember how life felt so many years ago. Like I was perpetually bent over from the weight of what I carried, and what I carried was my imploding life with a marriage that was in pieces, and chidren that were hurting. What it was and what it wasn’t. What I wanted, felt I needed, thought I should have, deserved. Why was I here, was I good enough, was I doing it right, did I ruin everything.

I was strong, but not that strong, and eventually I ran out of stubborn. So I quit. Threw in a towel and said no more. I fell under the weight of a life that was mostly about me, and God caught me in a fire that my flesh sorely needed.

I came out of that fire knowing one thing more than anything else: Every inch of my life is from Him, to Him, and for Him. Everything is about Him.

It’s hard though. Seeing everything through a lens that isn’t focused on us takes getting used to, but it is the road to freedom. When our lives are our own, with that comes the stress of doing it right. Comparison. Being enough. The fear of failing. The pressure of succeeding and of living a life of purpose and leaving our mark and pretty quickly we are bent over with the weight of a life that isn’t even ours.

I’ll (maybe) end with this question: Is it possible that at least some of the high levels of anxiety and depression that we are experiencing might be caused by the weight of lives that are mostly about us?

Oddly enough, there is great freedom and healing in the untangling of ourselves from our lives, averting our eyes from the mirror, and letting Him be the main character in our story.

Questions to start asking:

God, what do You want? What will bring You glory? What are You doing in this place, at this time, and how can I obey You here? How can I cooperate with what You want to do in me, with me, and through me in this season?

Where has my life become my own and how do lay it down again?

Marriage Matters—Fight Well

Learn how to fight, not with your spouse, but for your spouse and for your marriage.

Scripture is clear that our spouse is not our enemy.

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities,

against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12

It is so important that we understand who is really coming against our marriage, and where our battles must be fought. We must learn to take our fight into the spiritual realm through prayer.

Your marriage is meant to glorify God, which makes it a continual target for destruction by the enemy. Therefore, covering your marriage in prayer is imperative. Praying every day for (not against) your spouse is a good place to start. The same things that come against you, are coming against them.

One of the most practical ways I pray for my spouse is by asking God for the fruit of the Spirit to grow in abundance in both myself and my spouse.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” – Galatians 5:22

 Fruit must be grown. It never just appears. Be faithful in prayer, because God is faithful to answer.

We will have arguments and disagreements with our spouse, but our real fighting, the place we exert the most combative energy, should be done through prayer. That’s how we actually win the fight.

But Some Doubted

Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had directed them. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted. Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations…

Matthew 28:16-19

Judas was gone, so they were down to eleven. Eleven would eventually become twelve when they add Matthias. All but one of these twelve men would be martyred for their faith. Only John would survive, but would be exiled to Patmos, an island inhabited by criminals and political prisoners.

But as they stood here on this mountain, looking at the man they watched die and be buried in a tomb, some of them waivered. Some of them were uncertain as to what they were seeing. Some of them wondered if it could really be true. Some doubted. And yet, Jesus commissioned them all to go and make disciples.

At some point, their doubts became faith. How can we know this? Because people don’t risk, and ultimately give, their lives for something they doubt ever took place. I mean, I wouldn’t, would you? Would you go into a place that kills Christians and share the gospel, which includes the resurrection, if you doubted it happened?

Here’s my point with all of this –the doubters weren’t disqualified.

We all doubt, at some point. We may not doubt the resurrection, but maybe we doubt when we’re told that someone was completely healed of an incurable disease. Or when someone gives a testimony of seeing a deformity become undeformed in front of them. And don’t we often waiver between doubt and belief when we hear the stories that come out of places like Mozambique of dead bodies being raised to life? We want to believe it’s true, but doubt shows up anyway.

Some of us doubt things a little closer to home. Maybe we think our church is too dead to revive. Our bank account is too low to pay our bills. Our health is too far gone to be healed. Maybe our loved one has wandered too far to be brought back or we’re too broken to be of any use to the Kingdom of God. See what I mean? We are some who doubt.

He knows our doubts just as surely as He knew the “some” of His own disciples who doubted. But like them, He commissions us anyway. Calls us to go, to make disciples, to lay down our lives. He still fills us with His Spirit and His gifts and puts us into His body in whatever way He sees fit. Our doubts do not deter Him from calling us to keep following and keep going.

If Jesus doesn’t disqualify us because of our bouts with doubt, then who are we to disqualify ourselves?

Some doubted. Some still doubt. It’s ok. Let’s tell one another, pray for one another, and then go make disciples anyway.

The Servants Knew and So Did I

The man in charge tasted the water; it had now turned into wine! He did not know where it had come from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew. 

John 2:9

The words are in here. Waiting for me to set them free in the form of coherent sentences. The words, though, are swirling around like dust in a shaft of light, mixed with the emotions of what I see in this story. And not just this one, but every where in the gospels that I look at Him. *Sigh.* I’ll do my best to herd the words into a story of sorts.

This man, the one in charge at the wedding, he thought he was just tasting good wine provided by the bridegroom. (yeah…I caught that. Did you? Jesus. Our bridegroom. New wine.) Anyway.

The servants knew all about that wine that used to be water. They had seen it, participated in it. These were the hired help. Waiters. Seen, but perhaps unnoticed by the people eating and drinking and being merry. But they saw what Jesus did and I wonder what they thought of it all. Did they want to just fall down at His feet and never get back up?

I remember when it happened to me. My daughter was a teenager. That sweet girl is now, well, edging close to 40, but let’s not get sidetracked. Back then she was young and she was running wild from her pain with people that were not good for her. That sounds kind of generic, so let me see if I can put it another way. Her friend group was not just not good for her, they were actively bad for her, destructive in so many ways. As her mother, I was wringing my little hands half to death with worry and prayers that felt like they were hitting my ceiling and bouncing off the walls. And then Jesus told me how to fill the waters jars, so to speak. But instead of water jars, I would be filling bowls.

When he took the scroll, the four living beings and the twenty-four elders fell down in front of the Lamb. Each one held a harp and gold bowls filled with pieces of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people…

Revelation 5:8

“Ask Me to remove them from her life.” (this generated not a small discussion on – a. is that legal, you know, spiritually speaking, and b. what exactly did He mean by “remove”. We worked it out.)

So right there, in that two story house, I began to fill the bowls. And two weeks later the first friend left her life. And then another, and another, until they were all gone for various reasons. But here’s the thing. My daughter didn’t know, and those friends didn’t know that there was glory all over this thing. But I knew. In that house, where I often felt like the servant that wasn’t seen, I knew where the wine had come from, and it put me at His feet never wanting to get up. As one by one He removed the danger from my daughter’s life, I knew I was seeing glory. I knew He was there and it undid me in ways I can’t describe. He knows and I know that I will never be able to thank Him enough. We both know the glory He has spilled into my life and the lives of my family and how it has all become a fire in my bones that I pray will never burn out.

Words and thoughts like dust particles, but I want to capture them for you. To say to you that there is glory all around you. Bowls being filled as you pray for something that seems too big to be answered. Ordinary water being turned into not just something better, but into the best thing. Glory that may go unnoticed by others, but you will know, because you have done what He asked of you, so you’re in on it. You’re a witness to the miracles of what He’s done, and what He’s doing. You are filling bowls with what looks like unglorious water, but oh, just wait. He will bring forth wine. The very best wine. And you will know.

Let it be a fire in your bones. Let it bring you to His feet and may you never want to get back up.