Reflections on Grace

Grace is the strong hand that reaches out to pull us out of the rising waves when in fear we start to sink.

Grace is the eyes that see us even when we feel invisible to the whole world.

Grace stares in the face of infinite loss and points to but one mighty refuge: the Cross.

Grace is the divine hand that pulls us back from the brink. Every time.

Grace causes the last bits of ice on the surface of our souls to chip off and melt away.

Grace sprints to us while we are still a long way off and gets the fattened calf ready for the party of the century--because a beloved child is coming home.

Grace calls the lame, the blind, the rejected, the poor, the lost, and the mourning to feast in the King's banquet hall, and His banner over them is love.

Grace extends a hand to the lost and the rejected and asks them to dance.

Grace turns to the criminal beside Him and offers him paradise at his last breath, bringing the unshakeable hope of heaven even to a place shrinking under the stench of hell.

Grace is the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints. Qualified us, even us.

Grace is the searing poverty of One who, through His sacrifice, makes even the least of these extravagantly rich.

Grace marks the murderer, the outcast, the broken, the drug addict, the prostitute, the rapist, the abuser, the weeping, the child slave, the victim, the bully, the terrorist, the forgotten, the unwanted, and declares over them all the same eternal and beautiful mantra: You. Are. MINE.

Grace utterly demolishes every lie we've ever been told about ourselves and claims that we're worth the life and breath and blood and tears of the One who makes the morning stars sing together.

Grace is rain in the desert, peace in the storm, life in the midst of our lifelessness.

Grace breaks into the camp of the enemy and steals back lost innocence, lost hope, lost dreams, lost souls.

Grace declares that our past cannot define us, our present cannot possibly be the end of our story, and our future is being written by a hand of love.

Grace strips off our dirty, ripped, filthy sin-rags and garments of despair and drapes a spotless robe of righteousness and a garment of praise over us.

Grace gently pries the cheap dime-store trinkets out of our fingers to replace them with a gift of immeasurable worth. To place His ring on our finger.

Grace pursues us and chases us down and can always outrun us, because it is relentless.

Grace is the crimson stain obliterating the record against us, nailed to his cross.

Grace picks up our ruin and gets the mess of our lives on His hands and picks through even the gutter, the garbage dump, the dark alley, the dirt, the prison, the crack house, the nightclub, the brothel, the homeless shelter, the sweatshop, to find us. Just to find us.

Grace runs after us every time we run away. Every time.

Grace feels our tears on His face and our smile on His lips.

Grace breaks down the walls, tears the bars away, and floods the forbidden and forgotten places with light.

Grace is the divine power that pours unchecked healing into the broken life of someone who but touches the hem of His garment.

Grace wraps a towel around His waist and washes the feet of sinners.

Grace whispers, grace shouts, grace shatters all our preconceived notions about ourselves.

Grace is the treasure of the ages in a cracked jar of clay.

Grace defies all the lies we've ever been told about who we are and just starts telling us whose we are--until we finally start to believe it.

Grace pierces even the deepest darkness and rips off the veil.

Grace is the name of Christ, whispered in the darkest valley. Shouted from the highest mountaintop. Sung from the church pew, prayed by a lonely child, cried out by a single mom, pled by the worst of sinners, breathed out from the heart of the faint and weak and weary. Jesus. JESUS. Never-ending grace.

The Twilight/ Heaven Connection

With the recent release of the latest and last Twilight movie, Breaking Dawn Part 2, a whole slew of new articles have been cropping up that talk about the Twilight series and what it does to teenage girls. How it makes them feel about love. How it's similar to porn (I think that one's a long, long shot). All of its subtle and not-so-subtle implications about love, sex, marriage, and gender.

I watched all these movies, enjoyed the attractiveness of Taylor Lautner on screen, read most of the books, and really enjoyed them for what it's worth, but I do understand why many parents have chosen not to let their daughters get involved with this series. The movies' views of romance and sex are not always the best, and I'm not a huge fan of how Bella embraces the mindset of losing herself completely in a guy--that's an example adolescent girls could probably do without. However, I highly doubt that I'm the first to suggest this, but I see something different and much deeper in these movies. To me, they're one of the clearest representations we have in modern pop culture of the longing in the human heart for eternity.

Think about it. One of the major premises of the movies is that the vampires are (virtually) indestructible and ageless, and with the exception of the few who die over the course of the series, they basically live forever. They are impossibly strong, fast, powerful, and beautiful (and that's yet another social commentary right there--who doesn't long to be like that?) Because they live forever, Bella has to become like them, stopping her natural aging in its tracks so it won't hinder her relationship with Edward, forever seventeen.

I really think one of the reasons these movies are so popular is because they stir up and awaken the often-suppressed longing for immortality that nearly everyone has. They make you think, "What if I could live forever?" They invoke a deep craving for eternity, one of the most primal, unassailable parts of the human heart. As the Bible tells us, God Himself is the one who has planted eternity in the human heart. And He is the one who has made a way for us to embrace eternity and spend it with Him, truly living forever in the most fulfilling, exhilarating, joyful life imaginable.

I'm a big believer that any type of pop culture can become a forum for sharing the Gospel with others, and that there's some redemptive element in virtually all popular literature and movies, if you're willing to look for it. Have the Twilight movies awakened in you--or in someone you know--a longing for eternity that you didn't even know you had? Be inspired by them to find out more about that longing and the One who gave it to you. In so doing, you just may find that these films have that redemptive quality after all.

Emmanuel: God With Us

This is my 100th post, so I'm going to try my hardest to make it a good one! :)

As we approach the Christmas season, and the holiday lights are going up, cookies are being decorated, and presents are being bought and wrapped, one thought that continues to be on my heart is the true significance of the name "Emmanuel." God with us. God in human form, pleased to dwell with us.

What did it mean 2,000 years ago for God to come and live among men? What does it mean for our lives now? It means that God Himself, Jehovah, I AM, the one who hung the stars in the heavens and carved the oceans out of the depths, came to earth. Yes, He came to ultimately die and rise again to redeem us. But He also came to experience life as we know it, to weep over the things we weep over, to laugh with us over our joys, and to experience brokenness, poverty, loneliness, pain, and everything else that afflicts the human race.

He didn't just come to die, he truly came to live among us as the prophets foretold. He came to bind up the brokenhearted, to release us from our prisons, to preach good news to the poor, and to replace our ashes with crowns of beauty and our cloaks of despair with garments of praise. He came to break the silence with the hope of God's presence on earth.

In between the final prophets of the Old Testament and the birth of Christ, 400 years passed when God appeared to many of His people to be completely silent. I've felt many times in my own life that God has been silent, and I'm sure that you have too. But one of the miracles of Christmas is that when Christ came, on that long-awaited day, 400 years of silence were finally shattered by a baby's cry (as this song so beautifully describes). God was silent no more. He became our peace, and every barrier between God and man was broken.

In the 1960s, a missionary named Don Richardson went to Indonesia to evangelize among the Sawi people, an indigenous tribe known best for violence, deceit, and treachery. Few had ever attempted to reach them before. Richardson knew what he was up against when he first shared the Gospel story with the Sawi, and the only character they resonated with was Judas the betrayer.

Soon, war broke out between the Sawi and a neighboring tribe. Desperate to end the devastation and make peace, the Sawi chief decided to invoke a traditional treaty with the rival tribe: the agreement of the "peace child." In this agreement, one side offered to the other a baby boy to raise as its own. As long as that child lived, peace would prevail between the two tribes. The chief asked for volunteers to give up a child, but no one stepped forward. Finally, the chief himself, overwhelmed by grief, brought his only son and laid him in the arms of the rival chief, making peace.

Watching this scene unfold, Richardson knew exactly how to share the Gospel with the Sawi people. He explained to them that Jesus Christ, God's only Son, was the divine "peace child," given over to a sinful human race to reconcile mankind to the Father for all time. As long as that child lived, there would be peace between God and man.

Yes, Jesus is the "peace child," the Redeemer, the lifter of our heads and the healer of our hearts, who came to live and walk with us just as much as He ultimately came to die for us. Let that sink in this Christmas as you ponder the divine wonder of "Emmanuel," God with us, our Prince of Peace.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor--so that you through His poverty might become rich.

2 Corinthians 8:9 

Encouragement for Your Monday

If you are a child of God, then you know that the Lord goes before and will be with you, and He will never leave you nor abandon you. Nothing and no one can snatch you from His hand. The Lord is the one who has upheld you since you were conceived and has carried you since your birth, and He will sustain you all the rest of your life. He holds you by your right hand. God is the strength of your heart and your portion forever, no matter what.

The Lord is your guide. He is your Redeemer, who teaches you what is best for you and directs you in the way that you should go. His faithfulness surrounds you. He will lead you forward and keep you in perfect peace as you trust in Him completely. Cast your cares on Him, because He will sustain you. The Lord has called you for a righteous purpose, and He will fulfill His purpose for you in perfect time. He makes all things beautiful in His time. His mercies begin afresh each morning. He will always direct your steps as you trust in Him.

The Lord delights in you and rejoices over you, and He will quiet you with His love. He is your rock and your refuge, and even the most intense storm can't take that refuge away. He is your hiding place. His everlasting arms are holding you up. He is mighty to save. He is with you and will watch over you wherever you go. Because God is for you, no one can be against you. He has not given you a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and a sound mind. The joy of the Lord is your strength, and as you hope in Him, He will infuse you with new strength to face whatever you have to face.

And God's grace is always, always sufficient for you. For me. For all of us.

Why Leviticus Is an Inspirational Read

As one of the main aspects of our "90 days to a new you" program, my sister Meagan and I have been following a plan to read through the Bible in 90 days. For the past couple of weeks, we've been getting reacquainted with the familiar, and not-so-familiar, parts of the first few books of the Bible. (And we've been texting back and forth our discoveries and commentary: "Did you know Abraham got remarried after his first wife died?" "Christian pick-up line: I was reading the book of Numbers last night and I realized that I don't have yours." "Why wasn't that part of Exodus in the Prince of Egypt?" "Riddle for you: Who broke all 10 commandments at once? Moses!")

But when I read the Bible, I don't typically jump right to the book of Leviticus. This Old Testament law treatise has a reputation as being one of the most boring, hard-to-understand books in all of Scripture. Its 27 chapters are dedicated to a very detailed description of the laws the Israelite people were to follow: laws about burnt offerings and sin offerings and guilt offerings, laws about what was clean and unclean, laws about how the priests were to go about their duties. You might think I'd like this book because it's a compilation of laws, and I am, after all, a law student. But following that same logic, I'd also enjoy curling up on the couch with a cup of coffee and the Code of Federal Regulations. (Hint: I don't.)

But despite my hesitation, the reading plan put me in Leviticus this past week. So last Sunday afternoon, I dutifully settled down and started to read. And before I knew it, I was transported back into a different culture and time, a time before Christ. A time when God's people had to continually offer all kinds of sacrifices before the Lord to atone for their sins. A time when the blood of lambs and goats perpetually stained the altars and the stench of the offerings hung over the camp day and night, and when people had to make offerings even for unintentional or unknown sins.

What would it be like if we had lived in that day and time? Leviticus gives us a glimpse into just how burdensome, and even fearful and oppressive, the system of sacrifice could be. This is a dark and heavy book, and I think if it's read without a broader understanding of the big picture, it can engender a skewed understanding of the Word.

But I believe that one of the primary reasons that Leviticus was preserved in Scripture for us today was for us to see that the sacrificial system of the Old Testament was intentionally imperfect, and meant primarily to point to what was to come. If it were a perfect system, then there would have been no need for Jesus Christ to come. But the blood of animals could never really cleanse and purify. And it could never truly remove the guilt of the people. It makes us realize that these people needed a real Redeemer and a truly spotless Lamb. Their sin was so great . . . my sin was so great. All the animals in the world couldn't really take it away.

Leviticus shows you the utter magnitude of human guilt, the fear, the true oppression of sin. And the sacrificial system, before Christ, would never be enough. More blood would always have to be shed. Human efforts were always going to be futile. Every evening and every morning, another animal would need to be offered. About halfway through the book, you start feeling the desperation of the people, a sense of futility, and a sense that this system wasn't perfect, and wasn't meant to be. You begin to sense that even though the cost of all of those animal sacrifices would have been very substantial, the true cost of sin was infinitely greater.

Would you have believed at that time that there could ever be a final sacrifice? What if someone told you that one day, the need to sacrifice would be no more? Jesus did what centuries of animal sacrifice couldn't ever do: he saved his people from their sins. It wasn't temporary. It was permanent. Jesus paid it all.

Oh, how I need Jesus. Oh how we all need Jesus so much. I was overwhelmed by my need and by his mercy. And I think that's kind of the point of this book.

Leviticus even includes some rather gruesome imagery of how the sacrificial animals were to be slaughtered, pointing to an ultimate and excruciating brokenness as the real Lamb gave up his life. It made me truly realize the magnitude of what Christ has done for us and how important what He did really was. And even echoes of Exodus and the original Passover celebration come in: "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." God has passed over us in his wrath on sin, because it was poured out on the one perfect Lamb who became the ultimate sacrifice. The one that could really take away guilt, genuinely bring forgiveness, and tear down the walls that separated man from God. Thank you for your mercy. Oh, God, thank you for sending Jesus. And it was finished, and the curtain in the temple was ripped in two. It was FINISHED. Leviticus is worth your time to read because it makes the work of Jesus stand out in bold relief. Even though it's not always explicit, this book points to Jesus almost more than any other Old Testament book. As it does here:

Leviticus 26:12: "I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people."

Is the Gospel Offensive?

I'll just come right out and answer that question: yes, the Gospel is offensive--and the Bible describes it that way. Christians often say that we should never be offended by the Gospel, but I think what they really mean is that we should never be ashamed of the Gospel. Christians should freely and without shame embrace the Gospel as the truth on which they base their lives, but the Gospel, by its very nature, is offensive.

We live in an achievement-saturated culture that teaches that people will get ahead and be successful by their own hard work and best efforts. Our society is filled with hierarchies in which the rich, the powerful, and the successful are on top, while the poor, the broken, and the outcasts are all too often ignored and left behind. All around us we see cutthroat competition to do the best, have the best, and be the best. It's all based on who we are, and what we bring to the table, and how great we can be. And people who are deemed "more successful" than others are rewarded much more than those who don't have a long list of accomplishments to boast about, or a ten-page resume, or a seven-figure bank account.

But then the Gospel bursts onto the scene--and it throws all of our notions of merit out the window and embraces these great divine paradoxes that we may never fully understand. It utterly offends and shatters all of our concepts and preconceived notions of what's important. It says that who you are does not matter; who you are in Christ does matter. It claims that the most accomplished person on this earth isn't even one step ahead of the deadbeats when it comes to receiving the life Christ died to offer us. It tells us that the last shall be first, that the treasure of Christ is poured out into jars of clay, that all the strength and power of a risen Savior rests on the weak, the broken, the poor, and the persecuted. Because of what Christ has done, it doesn't even matter what you bring to the table.

The apostle Paul claimed that through the Gospel, God made foolish all of the wisdom of the world, and that God has chosen the weak, foolish, and lowly things of the world so that no one may boast before Him. The Gospel teaches that our hope comes solely through Christ, crucified and then risen from the dead. Nothing else counts--not our striving, not our efforts, not our successes. In Christ, stronger isn't better. More accomplished isn't better. More powerful isn't better.

And honestly, it's a shock to the system. It ruptures everything we know about how the world works and turns it on its head. God is not running a meritocracy, and that offends the way our world works.

It's offensive that our striving doesn't help. It's offensive that we can't do it on our own. It's offensive that our best efforts don't put us into right standing with God. It's offensive that our past accomplishments are deemed rubbish in comparison to knowing Christ. It can be difficult to accept, confusing, and even frustrating. But it is true--and it is good news indeed. The Gospel has the power to make us overturn our ideologies, change our commitments, relinquish our privileges, and dismantle our hierarchies. Our beloved merit-based system needs to get offended by the outrageous, ridiculous, extravagant GRACE of the Gospel.

Our society is obsessed with being politically correct and never offending anybody. But sometimes the truth is offensive. And sometimes, staring truth in the face and being offended by it--offended enough to be shocked out of our complacency and propelled toward change-is a good thing. But instead of embracing the offensive qualities of the gospel, we sugarcoat it in messages that are more like self-help, popular psychology, and the "prosperity gospel" than genuine truth. It's easy to sweep the hard truths under the rug.

The message that the cross of Christ wipes out even our very best efforts and shatters the wisdom of the world has always been offensive, and I think Paul recognized that in a way that we don't get today. In Galatians 5, he explained that he was being persecuted because his message refused to do away with "the offense of the cross." Paul embraced the offense of the cross and got his hands dirty with the Gospel message. And so should we! It is profoundly offensive--and that's the way it's supposed to be. 1 Peter describes Christ not only as the "chosen and precious cornerstone" but also as a "rock of offense" to some. And Jesus Himself asked His disciples on occasion, "Does this [my teaching] offend you?" He knew that his own message was bound to be offensive.

The Gospel offends all of our long-held assumptions about merit, effort, strength, profit, and power. It can overturn the foundations we've built our lives on. But if we're willing to let the message of the cross, in all its truth, offend all of our beliefs about how the world is supposed to work, we will be left face-to-face with grace.

A Gap Filled By Grace

Have you ever compared what you deserve from God with what God actually gives you? Recently,
I sensed God nudging my heart to just consider, for a moment, not what it is that I get from Him but what it is that I deserve in my relationship with Him. Because in truth, a life with a God who loves us is something none of us deserve! If what you get has to be based on what your actions deserve then....we deserve rejection from God because we reject Him so often. We deserve for Him to ignore our needs because we repeatedly ignore his commands. We deserve for God to seek after anything BUT a relationship with us, because we often treat Him as our last resort when nothing else has succeeded in filling our lives or hearts. We deserve brokenness for when we break the heart of God through our choices. We deserve for God to turn us away because we turn Him away. Regularly.

But I thank God that the economy of grace is not based on what we deserve!! Frankly, it's not even based on what we do. 2 Timothy 2:13 says that if we are faithless, he will REMAIN FAITHFUL to us. That is the gospel for the faithless. For those who fail. For those who have rejected God time and again but yet find themselves still longing for His embrace. It's for people who get tired and worn out from the cutthroat competition of our merit- and achievement-based world. Who long for a relationship where our actions can't change God's character. People like you and me. It's for people who want a sphere of existence that isn't dominated by achievement. That has nothing to do with the success that is ubiquitously craved in the surrounding world. Where we don't have to constantly DO or ATTAIN or STRIVE for favor. Scripture says that God's love and favor surround those who are righteous. At first, that may seem as if it takes us right back to exactly what we're trying to get away from--a world where we have to do certain things and be certain kinds of people to be loved. I've certainly been captive to that kind of thinking before. Because how can we ever be righteous?

1 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 30, answers that question more beautifully than I ever could. It says, "Christ Jesus has become for us wisdom from God--that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption." I don't know about you, but I can't add anything to that. Jesus IS righteousness for us. When I think about that, trying to earn God's favor seems pointless--if we trust Christ yet still find ourselves falling into the trap of trying to "earn" God's favor, then we are seeking to attain a position that WE ALREADY HAVE. Because we are covered in Christ's righteousness, we are in total right standing with God and our so-called "merit" is thrown out the window. Because we don't even need it anymore!

So, usually, when someone says, "you deserve better," it's kind of like saying, well, it stinks for you, because you didn't GET anything better. It prompts people to think about the gap between what they got and what they deserved, and that gap is often filled with regret and frustration.
Not so when I think of what I deserve versus what I get in my relationship with God. There is a HUGE gap between the rejection my actions deserve from God and the life I'm able to live through Christ. A life where, as one of my favorite songs puts it, the amazing is so ordinary and mercy overflows. And in this analysis of the "what I deserve" versus "what I get" I find that that extraordinary gap is filled by abundant grace.

Knowing Nothing But Christ

I had an old blog that I started keeping during the summer of 2010, but I just wasn't consistent with it. I decided to go ahead and delete that one and get a fresh start with this blog and see if I can keep it up, but I did find some old posts I had written that I'd like to go ahead and share again here. I'll probably post some of these in the next week or so.

This is one of the posts I wrote in 2010. It's on an issue I still think is really important now:

I feel really concerned by people, particularly in my age group, who are Christians but when asked about their "religious views" (on Facebook or anywhere else!) they say/ write something like the following:

• LOVE
• peace
• Social justice is my religion.
• I have a broad and inclusive perspective.
• God is too big to fit into any one religion.
• It's all about love...
• And you get the idea.

Frankly, I think that to only say these things while making no mention of Christ or anything related to him is a cop-out. If you are really a Christian, say so! Don't cover it up with some confusing, broad, feel-good, politically correct terms that don't really mean anything without Christ. (By the way, since when did my generation come to think that even our faith must be politically correct?)

If you read 1 Corinthians 1, you'll find that without the cross and the resurrection of Christ, vague notions of "love" and "justice" would probably honestly fit into Paul's category of the "wisdom of this world" and the philosophy of the present age--a wisdom he says is made foolish by the message of Christ! Now don't get me wrong--I'm not trying to say anything bad about love, justice, peace, or anything else I referenced on that list above. But those ideas have NO power devoid or separated from the power of the crucified and resurrected Christ! The early apostles did not sit around talking or preaching about those things. No, they preached the message of Christ and --empowered by that message--went out and LIVED those things. They were out living love so powerfully that thousands of people were coming to Christ every day! We can't just speak about feel-good concepts that don't really have a lot of meaning without Christ. In fact, Paul writes that he determined to know and preach NOTHING but Christ and Him crucified and resurrected. Maybe that is offensive, but sometimes, the truth is offensive.

As Paul did, we as Christians need to recognize the message of Christ which literally ruptures the flaky "wisdom" of our world and has the power to make us overturn our ideologies, change our commitments, relinquish our privileges, and dismantle our hierarchies. All I'm asking is that we not water down Christ to some wishy-washy, vague notion of peace, love, tolerance, justice, etc. And no worries--I'm guilty of doing this too and need to be reminded of it too! We need a little more of Paul's language of the interruption, offense, and new creation found in Christ to enter into our modern Christian discourse. We need to be praying that God will raise up people in His church who are not afraid to speak the truth. Love and justice can and should stem from our lives as saved people--but they are not our salvation, Jesus is! We need a rupture in our philosophy, like 1 Corinthians 1 gives witness to. We need to speak of Christ as the power of God and the wisdom of God.

So go. Be guilty of turning the world upside down. You won't be the first.