More Grace Needed

The paper was due for my class on a very specific date. I hadn’t finished it yet. The professor says, “I’ll give you some grace.” The bill came in the mail, but I failed to pay it on time. I called the company and they told me that they wouldn’t charge me late fees because it was still in the “grace period”.

When do we need grace the most? When we don’t meet expectations? When we don’t measure up? When we fail? When we are weak? When we are broken?

Often I have thought that I need the most grace when I have messed up and need God’s grace and mercy to cover my sin. I’m tempted to think that perhaps the greatest picture of grace is when a person who has lived their life in sin and rebellion turns for the first time to God and all of that junk is washed away and they are made new. Picture the death row inmate who has committed horrible crimes finally responding to the love of God and receiving forgiveness and grace for the first time—God washing away his sin and remembering it no more. That is Grace!

But, what if the greatest display of grace isn’t about washing away the past? What if the greatest picture of grace is not what is received when first turning to God but something we experience more and more as we walk with him? James 4:4-6 says:

You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

God is crazy about you. He loves you so much. The bible gives us a picture of this love by comparing it to the love of a husband who is totally in love with his wife. It is a passionate love. It is a jealous love. If the wife of this husband runs to other men to find love, how does the husband feel? Envious? Hated by his wife?

In the same way, God loves us so much that it pains him when we run to the things of this world to find satisfaction. He wants us to find that in him. When we don’t, because of his love for us, it as though we act as a wife who cheats on her husband. That is why the passage uses the word ‘adulterous’.

Something that I have prayed many times in my life is for more of God. I have asked him to fill me with his Spirit more and more. God says that this Spirit ‘envies intensely’. The more I have asked the Holy Spirit to fill me, the louder his voice becomes. As I walk with him more and more, I can hear his voice louder and louder, calling to me with a jealous love. The more of my life that I give to him, the more of me He wants.

As we grow in him, we become more and more aware of the areas in our lives that we have not yet fully surrendered. We begin to see the areas of our lives where we still run to something other than God, and can feel powerless to change the desires and habits that cause us to do so. The closer we get to God, the more we see an accurate picture of the way that we ‘cheat’ him out of his rightful place in our lives.

Yet, the next verse in this passage is the key: “But he gives us more grace.”

You can’t add ‘more’ to anything that is already the greatest. Therefore, we can’t look back at a moment of repentance where we experienced the grace of God covering our sins of the past and view that as God’s greatest demonstration of his grace in our lives. There is so much more grace that God has in store for you. Grace is not about the past, it is the light by which we see presently and the lens through which we view the future.

Grace is not demonstrated in its greatest form at the beginning of our walk with God, but grows each day as we draw closer to him. It is not most poignantly displayed in the mercy show for our failures of the past, but in its ability to lead us into the presence of God now and cause us to look more like Jesus.

Grace is not something that I experienced most profoundly in the past, it is something that I experience in ever-increasing measure presently and will know to an ever greater fullness in the future.

God’s greatest grace in your life is yet to come!

Yahweh

This weekend at APC, we did a new song entitled “Yahweh” by Hillsong (check it out here).  It is a powerful song, but one that for most of us requires a bit of explanation to set it up.  Here’s the reading we used to kick it off:

The Bible says that God seeks worshipers who will worship him in Spirit and in Truth.  Worshipping him in truth means that we worship him for who He really is, in response to the way that He has revealed himself, not as we would make him to be.

The Bible is the story of God revealing himself to us.  Take for instance God’s revelation of himself to Moses in Exodus Chapter 3:

Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you…YAHWEH, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.”

God reveals his personal name to his covenant people as Yahweh.  The connection of his personal name with the Hebrew verb ‘to be’…I am who I am, or I will be who I will be, shows that not only is God the self-existent creator, but that He reveals himself through his interactions with us…showing something new about who He is in every situation.

He told the Israelites that they shall know that He is Yahweh because of the mighty works that He performed for them.  In the same way, He continues to reveal himself, to be who He will be, in every situation that we face.

This personal, Hebrew name of God, Yahweh, is used almost 7,000 times in the Bible, often in a compound name, revealing something about who God is and desires to be for us.  He is…

• Yahweh-Elohim – The Lord God, the Redeemer-Creator (Genesis 2:4)
• Yahweh-Jireh – The Lord our provider (Genesis 22:14)
• Yahweh-Rapha – The Lord that heals (Exodus 15:26)
• Yahweh-Shalom – The Lord our Peace (Judges 6:24)
• Yahweh-Elyon – The Lord Most High (Psalms 7:17)
• Yahweh-Raah (or  Roi) – The Lord my Shepherd (Psalms 23:1)
• Yahweh-Hosenu – The Lord our Maker (Psalms 95:6)
• Yahweh-Gibbor – The Lord is Mighty (Isaiah 42:13)
• Yahweh-Tsidkenu – The Lord our Righteousness (Jeremiah 23:6)
• Yahweh Shammah – The Lord is There or Ever-present (Ezekiel 48:35)

The Lord, Yahweh, is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  He is the one, as it declares in Isaiah 42, “who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it:

[He says], “I, Yahewh, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light…to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. “I am Yahweh; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another….”

Let us worship the Lord, Yahweh, in spirit and in truth, for who He is, as He has revealed himself through all He has done and yet will do.

brutally honest

I’ve been spending a lot of time this week praying, reading, reflecting, and journaling.  Today I found myself journaling  like a mad man, and as I was finishing one particular section, I sensed God nudging me to share it for all to see.  Maybe it’s so you will see how human a pastor can be…maybe it’s to encourage you to take your eyes off of yourself…i don’t know.  All I know is that it’s raw, originally intended for my viewing alone, and I’m leaving it as one big paragraph to discourage you from reading it unless your really want to…and no pictures either.  Here you go:

Andy Stanley says that our lives are often lived on a happiness quest rather than a truth quest.   Lately it has become clear to me, if I am to be brutally honest, that my primary goal in the recent season of my life is to come to a place of peace and happiness rather than a place of totally hearing from God.  I say that because in thinking that if I had a choice between the two (assuming they are mutually exclusive…though this is probably not the case), I’d be tempted to take the happiness over actual truth.  I can see within my own heart a desire to please myself above all things and even to value my happiness above God (that sounds quite harsh, but in reality, if I am totally honest with myself, I can sometimes fall into the trap of seeing God as a means to my own happiness rather than to seeing my life as a means to his purpose and pleasure).  In the deepest parts of me, I keep forgetting that you can’t follow happiness, but rather, joy follows you as you follow Truth.  Even as I write that, I’m tempted to focus on the happiness part – that my happiness is the end and obedience the means.  I find myself using this motivation in sharing with others about Christ, seeking to lead them to a relationship with Christ because of the blessings that it personally brings…to fulfill their own happiness.  Now, I know that a relationship with God does bring the greatest joy that one can experience in this life…it’s the purpose for which we were created, and I’m so thankful that God has united our own satisfaction with it, but what if obeying God didn’t make you happy?  Would you still obey?  What if all of my “me-focused” theology only serves as a motivational means by which I will never be able to arrive at the final goal of a life totally surrendered to Christ and fully experiencing the ‘life to the full’ that He has promised?  My motivation for personal happiness may help me get started on the journey, but does it lead to the end of a life totally surrendered to Christ?  At some point you must pick up your cross, deny yourself and not question whether obedience will lead to greater enjoyment for yourself.  Even as I write that, I want to add a parenthetical comment saying (“It will!”).  It is so engrained in my thoughts, how shall I overcome my self-focused motivations?  It would seem as though every motive which would lead me to focus on something other than my own happiness leads me right back to that end.  Lord, today, even as you shine your light and expose the inner thoughts of my heart, may your grace cover over my pride and desire to prioritize my own happiness.  I see that my best attempts to change myself will only lead me into the same hole out of which I seek to climb.  Lord, I choose to fix my eyes on you and off of myself, for that is the only way that you will truly become both my way and my goal.  In view of your great mercy and love, I choose to serve and obey you and know you as my highest aim.

Reflection

I just spent a good bit of time talking with the Lord starring up at the moonlit sky.  With a covering of hazy clouds, the moon appeared extra bright with a halo of light surrounding it.  As I was gazing at the moon, I couldn’t help but think that in many ways, the brillance of the moon on this hazy night is a picture of the way my life should be.

I do not have any light of my own to offer, but I am to be a reflector of Jesus, the Light of the World.  It is his life that ought to shine through me, and not a light of my own creation.  Even as the uniqueness of the moon is revealed as it reflects the light of the sun, so too shall our lives reflect the unique ways that God has  gifted and impassioned each one.  Even in our imperfections and dark spots, we can still reflect the glory of the one far greater than ourselves as we expose those rough areas to his light.

The moon can indeed provide a good deal of light, but in reality it simply points to the source of true light in the sun.  So too may my life provide light to those wandering in darkness by pointing them to the true source of light in the Lord (you thought I was going to say “Son” didn’t you…don’t worry, I’ll spare both myself and you that hunk of cheese).

Up for bids…

This past weekend at Allison Park Church, we concluded our Elephants in the Church series with a message entitled “The Grey Elephant” where we addressed how to handle some of the hot topics that the Bible is not explicitly clear about…can you actually drink, smoke, chew or go with girls who do? (ok…that’s not really the way we approached it…if you want to check out the message, you can find it here).

I created a painting (see the pic) during the message to use as an illustration for this whole topic of grea areas.  So many times, we are tempted to pass judgment on activities and other people instead of evaluating our own lives…we are tempted to search for limits instead of daring to love.

I’ve been asked multiple times what I’m going to do with the painting now that the service is over, I’ve decided to see if maybe it could be used for a good purpose, so I’m putting it up for auction, with all money being given going directly to feed the hungry in Haiti.

There were 2 paintings created, one of which has already been claimed…the other is the one posted on this page.  You can make your bid by adding a comment to this post. I started the bidding last night on Facebook and the current bid is $75, so the bidding shall begin there.  I’m actually being serious about this, so only bid if you plan to pay.

Think about the possibilities (you can feed hungry kids while):

• teaching your children through your home decor
• starting a meaningful conversation about controversial topics at your next dinner party
• offsetting that large black/white grand piano with a complimentary painting on the opposite wall
• taking home a piece of APC memorabilia
• the possibilities are endless

I’ll even throw in a free cd of the message to go along with it.  Let the bidding begin!

Driving Blind

Imagine hopping in your car, putting on a blindfold, and driving to work.  That would be a pretty crazy experience (the closest I’ve come to that is when I’m too lazy to scrape the ice off my windshield and I attempt to drive peering through a few tiny holes in the ice… it is quite stressful).

I was talking to a buddy of mine recently who is an officer in the Navy.  One of his current responsibilities is to drive a large, nuclear submarine when the captain is not doing so.  Of course, this sounded very interesting to me and I was asking him tons of questions about it (most of which he would not answer…or he’d have to kill me…you know the drill).

When driving a submarine, you cannot see what is up ahead.  The normal method of using our eye sight to direct us, which we use for driving a car and pretty much everything else, is not an option for those commanding a submarine.

I asked him if that made him nervous and how often he ran into things.  He said that they operate under a ‘big ocean, small ship’ theory, which holds to the assumption that the ocean is so ridiculously large (and open) when compared with the size of the submarine that they can have confidence in driving the ship because the odds of hitting anything are so slim compared to the amount of open water in the ocean.

Obviously, steering the ship is more than just a guessing game and there are technologies that assist him in providing needed information to accurately drive the ship (especially when they get close to land), but the foundational truth that gives him the confidence to drive forward without being able to see with his eyes is the ‘big ocean, small ship’ concept.

For those of us following after God’s will for our lives, sometimes we can feel as though we are ‘driving blind’, that we cannot clearly see with our eyes (or with the sight of our own reasoning) what is coming up ahead.  However, we can operate with a concept similar to that of the Navy…what we could call the ‘Big God, small me’ principle.  When we begin to understand how ridiculously large (and good) our God is, and how small we are in comparison, we being to gain a new level of confidence about moving forward into the future, even when we can’t clearly see what is coming.  Just like when driving a submarine in the open seas, the odds are in our favor as we boldly pursue the plans that God has for us, for if God is for us, who can be against us?

In the same way one steering a submarine has the technology to assist him in his task, we are not just blindly moving forward and guessing our way through life.  We have been given tools to guide us in the path that God has for us…the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, the wise counsel of other mature believers, etc.

Many times, it would be nice to clearly see with my own eyes and reasoning what is in front of me in terms of God’s plan for my life (since that’s how I’m used to ’steering’ in other areas of life), but we often times do not have that luxury.  Instead, we must operate with the conviction that our God is so big, I am so small, and I can go forward in faith with confidence, even when I cannot see clearly, using the tools He has given me to follow after the plan He has for my life.

Patchwork

Ok…so you want ONE more crazy Haiti story (for now) from which I will then try to take the principles and make them applicable to your life?  I thought so…read on…

When we were in Oklahoma at the school that was raising money for Haiti, one of the fund raising events they had was a talent show.  As the judges were casting their votes for the winner of the show, a quilt was auctioned off to raise some additional money.  The quilt had been made by a group of students who each had created their own unique square.  Later, all of the individual squares were sewn together to form the large blanket.

The bidding begun, and the amounts offered for the quilt went higher and higher.  One young lady (who was talking to her mom on the phone while bidding) was consistently bidding the price up and she ended up winning the quilt…paying something like $275 for it…all of which would go to support the school children in Haiti.

Ok…so you’re not interested in quilting???  Stay with me…

After the talent show, the girl who had purchased the quilt came up to Hudson (the pastor from Haiti) with the quilt in her hands and she said, “I want to give this to you.”  It turns out that she was one of the creators of the quilt (which can been seen in the hands of the poor Haitian students in the picture above), and her mother, with whom she had been clearing the bids on the phone, was also very involved in the creation of this quilt to be auctioned off.  They had made the quilt, they had purchased it, and then, in an amazing demonstration of generosity, they just gave it away.

As my friends and I witnessed this we were thinking about how many hands had been involved in creating that quilt.  Each person had their own little square to focus on, but when their squares came together, they formed a beautiful masterpiece which was then freely given selflessly as a gift to benefit others in great need.  We couldn’t help but notice the amazing picture this quilt presented to us of how God had been working in the process of providing for the needs of the destitute in Haiti.  All through that week, we each had been sharing how God had used each of us to play a part in the story…Jeremy with his initial trip to the Haitian border village…our trip to Haiti together…Sandy in bringing the vision for the need to her school…the kid who licked peanut butter out of another kids armpit to raise hundreds of dollars…etc.  We could see how each of us had just been working on our own little square that was in front of us.  God was the master artist designing the whole thing (even without our being aware of it).  He brought each little square together to form a beautiful masterpiece to be freely given as a gift to benefit others in great need.

So often God only allows us to see the ‘little square’ that we are working on, and many times we are completely unaware of the other squares He has inspired others to create.  As we are faithful to do what He  has put before us, in his timing, He takes our square and begins to connect it to the squares of others he has been guiding all along, and a beautiful masterpiece begins to emerge, one that is far more complex and beautiful than we could have ever conceived.  He can then take what little we’ve given and form it into an amazing gift of his grace.

Hasn’t he already done that with us already?  Just as this quilt was made, purchased, and then freely given by this mother and daughter (and others), has our Father not made us, purchased us with the blood of his own son, and then freely given us of his grace?  He now extends to us the opportunity to be a part of the masterpiece of redemption, where we actually become an extension of his grace to a world in need.  What square are you working on?  What patchwork could our amazing God be creating next?

$700 For A Parking Space!

In my last post I told you that Oklahoma Christian School in Edmond, OK selected Hudson as the receptient of their week of fundraising efforts this year.  They were kind enough to invite Jeremy and I to fly to Oklahoma to take part, and some families from the school even flew Hudson in from Haiti so he could be a part of the festivities.

I was so impressed with the creativity, excellence, and ownership with which the school approached this week.  It seemed as though every student (I believe they have about 1,000 students in pre-school through senior high) was passionately involved in raising funds for the children in Haiti…children who are just like them, but who have almost none of the blessings they take for granted every day (even to the point of not having food).  I talked to one little girl who said she was selling popsicles to raise money.

They had assemblies each day to raise funds for Haiti.  One day was a ‘dare’ assembly (not to be confused with a D.A.R.E.) assembly, where one student even went as far as licking peanut butter from another students sweaty armpit to raise several hundred dollars.

The first assembly that Hudson and I were a part of was the teacher auction, where students would bid on items offered by the teachers and administration such as class parties, skip days, and parking spaces.  As the Head Master’s parking space was bid upon, students’ hands were raised for ever increasing amounts…$350…$400…$450…

As I was watching this, I recalled the story Hudson had just told me the night before about how less than a year ago he had pleaded with his church of about 150 people in Haiti to all contribute whatever money they could so that he could take it to a relief organization that required a “contribution” before they would give out food.  The church people borrowed from family and friends, and among them all, they were able to raise the equivalent of $70 with each one sacrificially giving.  Hudson then sent the  “contribution” to the organization, but they didn’t receive anything in return, for there was not enough food to go around.  The people were broken and Hudson, over the course of several weeks, payed the people back out of his own money so that those who had borrowed could repay their creditors.  Such has been the case for years as he and his people have fought the battle against extreme poverty.

As we heard the final call for the head master’s parking space go to a high school senior for $700, I looked at Hudson and tried to fathom what was going on in his mind.  This one student, in one moment, provided 10 times as much as an entire Haitian church could sacrificially raise to feed their families.

Hudson’s church has been praying for years and trusting God to ultimately provide the answer for their desperate plight.  They tried so many things to be able to help themselves, but each time, they got nowhere.  Now God had stepped in and miraculously answered their cry and had done more in a few minutes than they had been able to do in a few years.

I’ve heard it said that God can do more in a moment than we can do in a lifetime.  What do you think?  Imagine this from Hudson’s perspective…seriously…imagine it…$700 in a moment…$110,000 so far in a couple of months…can you imagine???

Are there areas of your life where you are seeking a breakthrough and it seems that no matter what you do, you can never make it happen?  Let this be an encouragement to you…if a high school student can pay $700 for a parking space in obedience to what God is doing to redeem and provide for a small Haitian village, can you even begin to fathom what creative means He has to  do more than you can ask or imagine?

(BTW – the pic above is of the student council students standing over Hudson, Jeremy, and I with t-shirts announcing they raised 70k…now 77k)

The Miraculous Provision

It was great being able to share on the radio yesterday the amazing story of how God led my friends and I on our trip to Haiti this past summer.  I love telling the story because it is pretty evident that we had no idea what was going on (just had enough faith to move us to action) and God took care of everything else.

I wanted to briefly share a little bit of follow-up to the crazy tale as the story is far from over.

When we got back, there were so many thoughts and emotions that I was dealing with…the amazing faith boost that this experience gave me, the thrill of the adventure, the joy from new and deeper friendships, and the renewed gratitude for the blessings that I don’t deserve…but also an keen awareness of the atrocious poverty we encountered, a sense of responsibility to do something about it, and a feeling of helplessness about how one person could do anything meaningful to help.  In the face of the indescribable need we witnessed, there is the tendency to feel quite overwhelmed and inadequate.

Jeremy and I both spent several months trying to make contacts with relief organizations, missions connections, and anyone else that could potentially guide us or offer assitance to no avail.

Then, out of nowhere, Sandy, a friend of Jeremy’s who had heard about our trip through Jeremy’s e-mails, had the crazy idea to present Hudson (the pastor we met in Haiti) and his 3 schools as a possible fund raising project at the school where she is a teacher in Oklahoma.  Out of 10 potential projects, the student council narrowed their selection down to 2 potential options, one of them being to provide food and sustainable solutions to run Hudson’s schools.

The only problem was that we hadn’t found an organization that would partner with us yet to provide expertise and accountability to Hudson.  The school said that they were making their final decision the next morning and if we didn’t have an organization that could manage the funds by then, the Haiti project would be removed from the running.

Jeremy started making some phone calls, still getting nowhere.  At around 4:30, as hope was quickly fading, he dialed the number for an organization called Food For The Poor.  As he described to the person on the other end of the phone what was going on, she replied, “that’s exactly what we do…connect people in the first world with people in need in the third world to provide sustainable solutions to break poverty.”

So, at just the right time, God provided exactly what we were looking for.  The next day, the school (Oklahoma Christian School in Edmond, OK) decided to select Haiti as the beneficiary of their fundraising week for the year.

When we were in Haiti, we estimated that we’d need around $65,000 to make a difference in the lives of the Haitian students for a year.  The school told us that we could expect to receive between $60,000-$70,000 from the fundraising.  Pretty convenient, ehh?

There’s more, but I’ll continue you in the next post…people tell me that my posts are too long, so I’ll just leave you hanging for now…

You free this afternoon?

I haven’t written about “The Haiti Adventure” for quite some time, though much has happened.  The very short, plain vanilla version is that in the past several months, God has provided $110,000 to provide sustainable solutions to the pastor we met there for his students, teachers, church, and community.

I’ll do some posts with more info of the rather miraculous ways that God has continued to work (first one coming tomorrow), but if you’re free this afternoon, you can tune in to Word FM as they are talking this week about Haiti and Food For The Poor and have asked me to be a guest on their afternoon show around 4:15 today (you can listen online or if you are in Pittsburgh, it’s 101.5 FM).