What Is Your Will In Christ?

I've written before about something I call relational extremism ( 3/11/16 Post:A Fast Pulse - Radical, Intimate And Extreme). In that writing I confessed my own complicit engagement toward that powerful bent and willingly entered my plea. But on my own behalf here and against that charge, I will attempt to plead my case for compassionate understanding while revealing the motivating conspirator and culprit behind my passionate conviction ...                                              It was a baby... Please don't misunderstand me, babies are wonderful. They not only represent, but are the true embodiment of new life. Fresh, innocent and full of potential, they possess within them all of the possibility of a grand future and inspiring hope... But this particular baby arrived with a scandalous agenda ... and I was His intended victim. You see, this particular baby wasn't at all who He appeared to be to most who had the opportunity to observe Him. Admittedly it took s

Psalm 33:1 NLT "Let the godly sing for joy to the LORD ; it is fitting for the pure to praise him." Before Thanksgiving dinner this year, those of my family gathered at the dinner table graciously exercised patience for a moment to give their dad and grandfather a moment to express a firmly held belief that he feels is sometimes a missing core element of some celebrations before the Lord. I'm speaking generally and not making any accusations, merely offering food for thought...  A very special friend and counsel to me a few years ago pointed out something to me that touched on what I've considered a very important point. It became something that expanded in my own mind and life as living truths have a tendency to do. He pointed out that anytime we approach the God of all creation, we should pause and consider who it is that we're about to address and enthrone Him in praise for all that He is and has done. In daily life we may find ourselves busily absorbed

*** Again, to the diligent faithful, I apologize in advance for what may seem somewhat redundant and potentially confrontational. It's not my goal to be either. But there may be some that this speaks to. And if it does, then my heart again cries out for them to not only hear it, but to gain from it. Note that I confess that I am not myself perfect and that I greet each day with the hope that through my willing submission to, and participation with Christ's work in me that I'll become a better man than I was the day before. *** Words, words and more words. They're everywhere. We use them and we abuse them. We write them, type them, think them, sing them and we say them. We throw them around. We bounce them off of other people and we direct them like darts. We deliver them with a smile and we shout them in anger. We record them on paper and plastic along with a host of other endless things. They paint pictures of things that are real and sometimes fantasies that nev

*** To the diligent faithful, I apologize in advance for what may seem somewhat redundant and potentially confrontational. It's not my goal to be either. But there may be some that this speaks to. And if it does, then my heart cries out for them to not only hear it, but to gain from it. *** The struggle for human achievement and notoriety is an old one. History is full of achievers and notable people and I'm not suggesting that it's necessarily a bad thing. But from a personal perspective, having invested a number of years in life so far I've come to a humbling, yet not defeating conclusion:  There's nothing that I have ever done and nothing that I could possibly do that would ever have the smallest chance of equaling what's already been done for me - the greatest example being Christ's sacrifice of course, but so much more well beyond that. Personal life fact: on a 1 - 10 scale of things that count in Father God's examination of my life, there ar

What if you and I were somehow found to be stranded - wandering in the desert, lost without hope, dehydrated and suffering from starvation? And what if the Lord suddenly appeared out of nowhere holding a small cup of warm water, a stale dried crust of bread and a few dried figs and offered them to us with a promise to continually provide us with more of the same as He leads us the long, long way out of the wilderness? How would we respond? Would we complain that the water was warm and not enough? Would we complain that the bread was stale and hard? Would we argue that we knew that this was such a  meager offer in comparison with what we knew that He was able to provide and ask for something more? ... ... Or would we acknowledge that what He offered belonged to Him alone and that this life sustaining offer was something that we had no right or title to in the first place and was thereby purely a gift of compassionate grace? Would we be willing to not only acknowledge, but op

I once made a comment to a friend that appeared to have taken them aback. T his comment wasn't intended in any way to offend (I love this friend very much), but instead to point to a necessary and very important truth of core priority. It wasn't something that I just tossed out in passing or without my own understanding of the real potential power of its meaning in any one's life. I've personally lived to experience the fruit of it.  Let me say first that my own efforts as a follower of Christ aren't perfect. I rise every day with new hope to be better than the day before with Jesus' help. I'm definitely a child of amazing grace, so I have no elevation above any others in the same position. But I've discovered that this life's difficulties are often intended to bear eternally profitable fruit in the lives of God's children. They're not meant to tear down, but to build up and to refine the character of the souls of the children that our H

On a day when life might find me a victim poisoned by the unending news of mankind's unholy indifference and intentions, grace finds me still to revive my soul to courage and confidence. The word of life gives me renewed hope through reminding me of the one who holds my life's fortune. For it's not in the hands of men without moral compass or those who plot ungodliness with relentless indifference to determine my future. It resides firmly in the hand extended from the power that gave birth to the universe and all that it contains. My future is spoken irrevocably from the very mouth that birthed the multitude of stars and spoke into existence all that resides under the canopy of the heavens. I am reminded that my sojourn in this lifelong education is not by chance, but divine choreography. What my eyes may see and my ears may hear are but opportunities for true examinations of my faith in the one on whom I am, in honesty, wholly dependent. For certainly there is nothing p

In a world rife with challenge, threatening possibilities and readily available offense it can easily become second nature to develop a habitually defensive and aloof posture. We're learning to choose our words and craft our conversation more carefully in order to avoid unintentionally offending the sensitivities of others in an environment that sometimes seems overtly sensitive and anxious to challenge. In that kind of environment putting up invisible walls between ourselves and other people or an endless number of other things can become second nature. Conversations can become frivolous and blatantly surface level - devoid of any depth or transfer of life and I would guess that in some cases this might not necessarily be a critical issue depending on the situation. I'm not attempting to comment on those kinds of situations here ... with one exception. I've met a few followers of Christ over time that seem to lack a certain spark, twinkle in their eye or evident passio

My sweet mother graduated from this world this week and I find myself struggling just a little with the knowledge of her absence from this world while I'm left to inhabit it without her.  As a follower of Jesus like my mother, I know where she is. She's not gone and she's not missing, she's just not here. But even with my knowledge and complete confidence in Christ's word, I occasionally find myself a little overcome with moments of deep sadness as I work through processing her departure ... but then I fight back. It's so easy given our current limitations to focus on the microcosm that is this world as the content of our life. But the real and true picture isn't so small and if we believe God (which I do completely), this world is just the front doorstep of our actual lives. My precious mother was never her body of flesh and it was never our heavenly Father's intention that any of us would perish with our flesh. She inhabited her body for a time, bu

There comes a time in every life I think, when we have the opportunity to contemplate how short the lives of our physical bodies seems to be. It really doesn't matter how old you are when you watch a loved one coming to the end of their span in this life, it seems that our desire at that time for them is almost always for more ... More time - in good health, sharing the laughter, the conversation, ... the good times. But we're not the masters of time. Each one of us is given a predetermined portion of time to inhabit these physical bodies and no one can know in advance exactly when that time will run out. It may be very short or very long and no matter how long it is, it never seems to be enough in the minds of those who are left behind. But what really happens when the figurative hour glass runs out? What will have mattered then? When the last grain of sand has fallen - in the very next moment for that soul who's time has expired ... what will the accounting look li