Archive for the ‘Spiritual Growth’ Category

In the morning I lay my requests before you and I wait in expectation.
Psalm 5:3

Prayer is so much more than the puny, ordinary thing we make it out to be. And that’s because the One we’re praying to is not only so much bigger than we’ll ever be able to comprehend. But also so much more willing to respond to us than we’ll ever be able to comprehend as well.

Think about this:

• Our galaxy has approximately 250 billion stars and it is estimated that there are 100 billion other galaxies in the universe, each with hundreds of billions of stars. And He’s named each one.
• The universe is so vast in relation to the matter it contains that it can be compared in this way: A building 20 miles long, 20 miles wide and 20 miles high that contains 1 grain of sand. And He’s holding it all in the expanse of His hands.
• The largest star to date, Canis Majoris, is so large that if Earth’s Sun were replaced by it, its radius would extend beyond the orbit of Saturn. And He merely spoke it into existence.

Prayer isn’t just an empty box to fill in on your morning checklist. Every day you get to speak to the One who created and is sustaining a universe that makes you look like less than a grain of sand in comparison.

But now think about this:
The same God who knows the names of every star knows your name.
The same God who is holding the universe in the expanse of His hands is holding you in His hands.

God is infinite, but He is also intimate. Prayer isn’t just lofting up requests to a distant God with little chance of Him responding. Every day you get to have face time and collaborate with the Creator of the universe.

That’s why Psalm 5:3 says that you can wait in expectation when you pray. You should actually expect God to respond to your prayers. When I’m expecting something my mind is preoccupied with it. My schedule is arranged accordingly. I’m actually anticipating it to happen. Prayer isn’t just having a little five-minute conversation in the morning and then going about your day. Prayer sets the agenda for your day.

God expects you to expect Him to be able to answer your requests. But He also expects you to expect Him to want to answer your requests.

You might be as small as a grain of sand, but you have a privilege no star or galaxy will ever have. Take advantage of it today. Lay your requests before God. And wait in expectation.

This entry was originally posted June 6, 2011

Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow-
Blessings all mine with ten thousand beside!

Please tell me you know that hymn. It’s one of my favorites. I was singing the third verse of Great is Thy Faithfulness the other day, and I had a relatively profound thought: that’s exactly how it works in the economy of God.
Not the other way around.

God gives strength for today, and hope for tomorrow.

Sometimes we get it backwards. When we worry about the uncertainties of tomorrow we’re bound to bend and break beneath the weight of anxiety. God doesn’t give strength for tomorrow’s tests. He only gives strength for today. Like manna. Each day has enough trouble of its own .

God’s only provision for your future needs is hope. The certainty of His sovereignty is your only guarantee. Make a note though: God doesn’t give you hope for the needs of today. He gives you strength for your immediate needs-and He expects you to do something about them! I’ve met people who waste time hoping things will work out-when God has already given them the strength to make a change and take a step. You can’t substitute hope for hard work, expecting God to do something for you that you can do for yourself.

Do you a have need today? Walk confidently in the strength of your God for the needs of your now.
Do you have a concern about tomorrow? Tomorrow’s strength will be deposited in your account first thing tomorrow morning-not a moment before.
Until then, put your hope in Christ alone.

Great is His faithfulness!

This article was originally published May 14, 2009.

But Moses said, “Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot, and you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!’ Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? The LORD answered Moses, “Is the LORD’s arm too short?
Numbers 11:21-23

The Israelites wanted meat. God said he would provide it. But Moses doubted it because he didn’t see how it was possible. 600,000 men. Not enough corresponding animals.

It seems simple enough, but that’s because Moses’ conclusion is based upon an estimation made from logic. And logic, while God-given is not a reliable companion when it comes to calculating God’s infinitely great power.

In fact, it can be offensive. When we calculate God’s capabilities and limit God according to our logic, it insults His ability. It confines an unlimited God to the realm of possibility that has been constructed by our limited imaginations. It allows His ability to only stretch as far as our minds and our faith allow it to. And that’s infinitesimally small compared to an infinitely great God.

Unfortunately a lot of people still feel that their situation is the first to finally break the limits of God’s abilities. It seems like there’s a natural tendency in us to feel that our present predicament is the one just beyond the reach of God’s arm.

Your financial situation is such that even God can’t provide for it.
Your illness is too strong even for even God’s power to heal it.
Your marriage is too irreparably damaged for even God to restore it.
Your addiction is so overwhelming that even God can’t break it.
Your friends and family are so far from God that even His arm can’t reach them.

But each of these estimations is just like Moses’. Limited by our own conception of what’s logically possible. We have to get used to the fact that God and His abilities don’t make sense. And that’s a good thing.

Because then He can pour out provision that doesn’t make sense.
He can heal in ways that don’t make sense.
He can restore marriages in ways that don’t make sense.
He can break the power of a sin in your life in a way that doesn’t make sense.
He can save the lives of the people who seem the furthest away from Him in ways that don’t make sense.

Whatever situation you’re facing right now, you’re not out of the reach of God’s arm. You are not and never will be the first to break the limits of God’s abilities. It might not seem logically possible to you. But never forget that what seems impossible to us isn’t even remotely difficult for God.

This entry was originally posted September 29, 2010

Sometimes God interprets our prayers in strange ways.
Sometimes you pray for something and God gives it to you, but the package doesn’t look like what you prayed for.

You prayed for humility. You got demoted.
You prayed for contentment in Christ. You stayed single longer than you wanted.
You prayed for the ability to love unconditionally. You married someone who was imperfect that made it possible.
You prayed for God to be enough. You were put in a bleak circumstance where He had to be.
You prayed for increased faith. You found yourself in a situation that required it.
You prayed for patience. You got in-laws.

This might tempt you to not pray for these things at all. But that would be your loss. Not your gain. I love 2 Peter 1:8. Peter tells us that if we possess qualities like those above, “they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The package might not look like you thought it would. But it’s going to help you become the person you should.

Our best prayers are often the ones that the Holy Spirit interprets, filters, and presents to God in such a way that it gives us exactly what we need even if it’s not exactly what we want (Romans 8:27). Or gives us what we want in a way that we don’t want or couldn’t have imagined.

God’s packaging is precise. He’s been at the business of answering prayers for a long time and He knows what He’s doing.
Keep praying and trust that what you get is exactly what you need and asked for. Even if you didn’t know it at the time.

This entry was originally posted Dec 16, 2010.

And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
Mark 15:39

This isn’t exactly what you would expect out of someone who had just watched Jesus brutally die. You would think they would respond with revulsion. Maybe sadness. Probably a sense of pity.

But the centurion worshipped Him.

This is the opposite of how many people respond to Jesus’ death.
The crucifixion of Jesus makes us feel sad and horrible. We often feel pity for Him.

But we really shouldn’t.

Partly because the cross wasn’t the Jews or the Romans’ idea. It was Jesus’ (Acts 4:27-28). But mainly because pity isn’t how Jesus wants us to respond to His death. Jesus didn’t die so that we could feel sorry for Him because he’s pitiful, but so that we would worship Him because he’s so powerful.

Worship is the exact opposite of feeling sorry for someone.
You can feel sorry for someone and not feel compelled to submit your life to them.
You can feel sorry for someone and actually think lower of them.

And that’s not what Jesus wants.

Jesus didn’t die to evoke your pity. He died to consume your life.
Pity has no place at the cross. Worship and submission does.

This entry was originally posted on July 13, 2011.

I don’t think we can ever talk enough about the faithfulness of God. It’s the starting place of any big prayer or act of faith.

In Sun Stand Still, I wrote:

Our faith may fail. But God’s faithfulness never will. Our faith is not built on the fault line of feelings or the flood plain of our performance. We build our faith on solid ground. Higher ground. We build on the faithfulness of God.

That’s as true today as when I first wrote it. Not because I wrote it, but because it’s the clear testimony of God:

If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot disown himself.
2 Timothy 2:13

But I also believe that there’s another side to the interplay between our faith and God’s faithfulness that we can’t afford to ignore. God is faithful even if we are faithless. But God shows His faithfulness in a special way towards those who show their faith in Him.

I’m not talking out of both sides of my mouth. It’s simple, really. God is always faithful. But it’s the people who step out in faith that have the opportunity to see God come through for them and move in ways that those who are faithless don’t.

While the Bible is clear that God’s faithfulness is the solid ground of our faith, it’s also clear that our faith gives God a way to display His faithfulness.

God would have remained faithful if Moses had remained in the desert, herding sheep. But because Moses had the faith to be God’s representative before Pharaoh, he had a front row seat to the 10 plagues and the parting of the Red Sea – both huge demonstrations of God’s faithfulness.

God would have remained faithful if Daniel hadn’t had the courage to keep praying to God when he was told not to. But because Daniel had the faith to persist, he had a bird’s eye view to God’s faithfulness in the lions’ den.

God would have remained faithful if Peter hadn’t walked on water. But because Peter had the faith to step out of the boat, he got to see Jesus’ faithfulness in a way the other disciples didn’t.

Maybe we could sum it up like this:
God has demonstrated His past faithfulness to give us a foundation for our faith.
Now show God your faith. And He’ll show you His faithfulness.

Not because you would have earned it. But because you would have put yourself in a position to see it.

Pray big.
Dream big.
Take big steps of faith.

Because of how you’ve seen God’s faithfulness in the past. And because you want to see Him show His faithfulness in ways you haven’t seen yet in the future.

This entry was originally posted on October 20, 2011.

So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lions’ den. The king said to Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you!”
Daniel 6:16

Daniel is one of the most courageous and faithful men in the entire Bible. But not for the reasons we usually think.

For example, when telling the story of Daniel and the lions’ den, most people usually focus on Daniel’s courage in the lions’ den itself. But what’s curiously missing from the whole story is any description of Daniel’s experience in it. Not one word.

153 verses on his life before the lions’ den. Aside from when he tells the king that God had shut the mouths of the lions, zero describing his time in it.

And the reason is because Daniel’s courage and faith in the lions’ den isn’t the point. After all, shutting the mouths of the lions was God’s thing. Once Daniel gets thrown in the lions’ den, what is he really going to do?

Daniel’s courage and faithfulness was shown in the way he lived that got him thrown into the lions’ den. The real miracle was when his enemies were looking for a way to accuse him but they couldn’t find anything in his life. So they had to make up a law forbidding prayer to anyone but the king to get him thrown in. And yet he still prayed. That’s real courage. That’s real faith. And it was that courage and faith that became the setup for God’s display of faithfulness.

I think most people want a lions’ den experience. Maybe not the danger, but they do want to see God do huge things in their life. Come through for them in big ways. Decisively display His deliverance. Show people that our God is still a God who can accomplish the impossible.

But most people will never have the opportunity to prove God’s faithfulness in the lions’ den because they have not proved their faith in everyday life.

They’re not going to see God come through for them in a huge way financially because they haven’t learned to trust Him with 10% of what they have.
They’re not going to see increased favor at work because they segregate God from their work.
They’re not going to see God use them in powerful ways at their school because they live in such a way that no one knows they even believe in God.

Don’t try to be like Daniel in the lions’ den. Be like Daniel who prayed every day and had integrity. Be like Daniel and serve God continually in every aspect of your life. Have the courage and faith to live in such a way that God actually has a platform to show His faithfulness from.

And then God will do His thing in the lions’ den.

This entry was originally posted on January 13, 2011

There’s power in specific instructions from God followed by immediate obedience by us. In fact, I think this is one of the most overlooked and underappreciated parts of our faith. And it’s also one of the most powerful dynamics that can either thwart your potential and intimacy with God, or take it to whole new heights.

Examples of specific instructions that require immediate obedience are littered throughout the Bible.

• God gave specific instructions to Noah to build an ark. Noah obeyed and God used it to save the family that would repopulate the world after the flood.
• God told Abraham to leave his country and go to the land God would show him. He did and it was through his descendants that the Savior of the world would come.
• An angel of the Lord told Joseph to take Mary as his wife. Joseph obeyed and became the adopted father to Jesus.

And those are just three instances. I didn’t even mention Moses and the Tabernacle, Joshua at Jericho, Gideon’s instructions to reduce his army, Peter walking on water, or any of the crazy things the prophets were told to do.

I’ve found that it’s often the simplest commands and the simplest acts of obedience that have the deepest and longest lasting results. And become the foundation for larger assignments of faith later (Luke 16:10). Great opportunities later necessitate immediate obedience now.

So what specific instruction has God given you recently? Maybe even today?

Regarding your family? Your job? Your church? Your circle of influence? Your possessions? Your future? Your relationship with Him?

Don’t calculate. Don’t second-guess. And don’t delay. Just do it now.

Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking that your life is too big for you to obey a simple instruction from God. You will never outgrow the need to immediately obey anything God tells you to do.

And you might as well obey God now. Delaying won’t make it any easier…only more complicated.

This entry was originally posted on September 27, 2011

Do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” For what son is not disciplined by his father?….No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Hebrews 12:5-8,11

Many people have a warped view of God’s reaction to our sin.

They think that if God is disciplining them, He’s out to get them. They’ve walked away from God, so now He’s paying them back. Getting even. Settling the score.

This misses the whole point of God’s discipline.
God doesn’t discipline us to pay us back but to bring us back.

To our senses.
To the life we were saved for.
To Him.

One of the most unloving things God could do would be to allow you to live in sin and operate under the illusion that you’re still close to Him. Conversely, one of the most loving things God can do is to bust you in your sin. To make you realize just how far away you are from him. To get you to see just how far you’ve drifted, and how desperately you need to come back.

And so sometimes God will discipline us. He will accept your momentary pain for your eternal pleasure. He doesn’t have a vendetta. He’s not trying to settle scores. He’s not trying to pay us back.

God’s wrath is satisfied.
The score was settled on the cross.
What payment does He have to gain from us that Jesus hasn’t already given to Him?

If you’re a Christian, there is absolutely no wrath left for you. The only thing remaining is God’s loving discipline. If you’re experiencing that right now, God doesn’t hate you. He is just trying to bring you back to Him.

God’s children don’t need to be worried about His discipline.
In fact, they should only ever be worried if they never experience it.

If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.
Hebrews 12:8

This blog post was originally published on July 5, 2011

Acts 3:2
Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts.

Acts 3:6-7
Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”
Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong.

These two verses are interesting when you look at them side by side. I think they kind of reflect two different ministry philosophies.

There’s a crippled man. He needs help.
One group of people decides to help him by carrying him to the gate to beg everyday.
Peter and John decided to help him by reaching down, pulling him up on his feet, and telling him to walk.

Our ministry philosophy at Elevation is more like the latter. We don’t really have much interest in carrying people to the gate to beg. We don’t coddle and cater and spoon feed.

We’ll reach down and help you. We’ll impart the healing power of Jesus to you. But you’ve got to get up and walk. You’ve got to make a personal investment into studying God’s Word for yourself.

How about you? Are you investing too much time in carrying people to the gate and dropping them off to beg? Are you the one doing the begging when you should be lifting somebody else’s burden?

Take some advice from Peter.

In the name of Jesus, walk.

This article was originally posted January 13, 2010.

There’s a tension that exists whenever God has moved greatly in the life of a person or church. It’s the tension between looking back and looking forward.

Celebration and anticipation.
Both must exist. Together.

But what usually happens is we specialize in one of them at the expense of the other. Some people really celebrate what God has done, but they don’t anticipate the next thing He wants to do. Others really anticipate what God’s going to do, but they don’t celebrate what He’s done.

According to the way God wants it done, He commands both.
Commemoration is equal parts celebration and anticipation.

You can see this in Joshua 4 when God tells the Israelites to put down stones in order to commemorate their passing through the Jordan River. The purpose was for it to be a reminder of how God had led the people through the desert for forty years and through the Jordan. It was a symbol for what He had done.

But it was also looking forward to the Promised Land and taking possession of it. It was a symbol for what He was about to do.

Celebration and anticipation belong together and flow into one another. And we need to be good at both.

It seems trivial, but it’s not. I believe this is one of the main reasons Elevation has seen God move mightily in the past five years. We make every attempt to celebrate passionately and adequately when God blows us away. But we also really try to anticipate how He is going to blow us away next and plan accordingly.

We’re trying to live in the tension. You need to as well.

Some of you are too busy dreaming about where God is taking you next to appreciate how far He has taken you recently. Stop for a moment and celebrate.

Others of you are so busy celebrating what God has done in your life that you’ve yet to realize it’s just a taste of what He still has to do in you and through you. Stop for a moment and anticipate.

Commemoration is equal parts celebration and anticipation. Learn how to do both well and don’t be surprised when God gives you more things to commemorate.

Originally posted on January 20, 2011.

But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”
Acts 9:15-16

Most of us focus on the incredible accomplishments of Paul.
How he wrote 2/3 of the New Testament.
Took the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Became the greatest missionary and one of the greatest preachers ever.

Sometimes we’ll point out his suffering. But it’s usually isolated. We use it to talk about pain and trials and how to get through them. Or how God’s power is made perfect in our weakness. All of that is true, but I think we often miss a crucial point.

Paul’s accomplishments and his suffering went together.
And there’s a reason for that.

It’s not because God had some kind of a secret vendetta against Paul. He had killed Christians, so why not make him drink a little of his own medicine while using him to spread the gospel.

As others have pointed out before, it’s because for Paul to be used greatly, he had to be wounded deeply. The greater the calling, the greater the cost. Making a difference in the world means absorbing substantial pain. For the sake of God, and for the sake of the people you’re making a difference for.

That was true for Paul.
And it will be true for you, too.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you’ve got flogging to look forward to. But I am saying that most of us want to do the kinds of things Paul did without having to go through the kinds of things Paul went through. And it doesn’t work like that.

God has to bruise you before He can use you. So you’ll be sensitive to His touch. So you won’t have an ounce of self-reliance in you. So you’ll be able to relate to the people you’re ministering to. So when everything is dark around you, your light within you will actually have a chance to shine.

If you really want to be used greatly by God, accept this now:
You’re going to be tired.
You’re going to be betrayed.
You’re going to suffer.

Like Paul, your great calling will exact a great cost. You’ll be able to say, “For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body” (2 Corinthians 4:11).

But also like Paul, that won’t be the final word for you. You’ll be able to say, “Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

This entry was originally posted on June 13, 2011.

Most of us have heard countless sermons based on the premise that we need to trust in the character of God when we’re going through trials.

But we also need a basic and innate confidence in God’s character in our times of blessing.

If you’re suspicious of God’s intentions in your life, not only will you struggle to trust Him in the hard times, you’ll find it nearly impossible to enjoy the good times.

When you operate out of a basic framework of spiritual suspicion, when God blesses you financially, you’ll receive it with a heavy dose of guilt, rather than responding with gratitude and generosity.

Suspicion assumes that even if all your kids are healthy and doing well in school, sickness and struggle are lurking just around the corner. You’ll squander your entire season of peace and favor worrying about the stormy weather that you’re sure to encounter soon.

In other words, being suspicious of God means believing that His blessings are too good to be true. And they’re on the verge of slipping away any moment.

The truth is, God’s blessings are too good to be true. That’s what grace is all about. You didn’t earn it. You don’t deserve it. But He gave it. So enjoy it. And give all the praise to Jesus in the process.

Stop squandering your season of blessing by living in a state of suspicion.
Enjoy the favor of God in all its fullness-and trust in the Lord with all your heart. Not just in the bad times. But in the good times, too.

Originally posted December 19, 2009

It’s common practice to teach your kids to say ‘please’ and then ‘thank you’ when they have requests. It’s considered proper protocol. And when talking to adults, it is. But with God, things are a little bit different.

God has a protocol for how He wants to be approached. And it starts with thanksgiving:
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Psalm 100:4-5

With God, ‘thank you’ should always come before ‘please.’ The first thing that needs to come out of my mouth in prayer and worship needs to be praise for who God is and what He has done. Not just instructions for what I want or even need Him to do.

Thank you is the key that opens the door to God’s house. There’s a lot of reasons for this, but more than anything, it’s about perspective.

If you thank God for everything before you ask Him for anything, it makes you realize you deserve nothing. It gives you the worldview that but for the grace of God, you would be in hell. And in turn, it makes you even more thankful because you’re not. And because God still answers your prayers.

Additionally, starting with ‘thank you’ is just practical. When we start with praise, we establish the goodness and greatness of God right off the bat. Now all of our subsequent prayers and complaints can be answered by a good and great God who can both respond to us and who wants to.

It’s impossible to be self-absorbed and God-conscious at the same time. Realign your perspective in prayer today.

Start with ‘thank you.’ And then move on to ‘please.’

Originally posted July 26, 2011

Your best innovation flows from revelation. You must prioritize the presence of God in your life.

More can be accomplished in a nanosecond of prayer, worship, and listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit than a month’s worth of strategy meetings in the flesh.

Many leaders have created virtually no margin to make room for the kind of divine encounters that birth true vision and revolutionary concept. I can trace the genesis of many of the most important ideas in the history of our church to a specific moment in the presence of God. I can trace my most frustrating seasons to a deficiency of time allocated to my most important task: seeking the wisdom of the Lord.

What would Moses have missed had he never turned aside to see the burning bush?
If the leaders in the church in the book of Acts had neglected prayer and the Word to serve tables, how might the influence of the Gospel been impeded worldwide?

What revelation, inspiration, imagination and innovation is left undiscovered in your life because you’re failing to prioritize the presence of God?

Originally posted October 1, 2009

I tweeted last night:
An ounce of anointing is more precious than a thousand tons of talent.

When I say anointing, I’m talking about the supernatural enabling of the Holy Spirit.

If you’ve got it, you’ll do greater things for God than you can imagine, and live a remarkable life for His glory.

If you don’t, you won’t.

If you’re anointed by God, you’ll do things far beyond your capability. You’ll live in a constant state of humility, because you need the Lord for every step, every breath, every situation. You’ll live in constant amazement at all the ways He comes through for you.

If you’re not anointed by God, even your strengths will become weaknesses in time. You’ll still do good stuff, maybe even impressive stuff. But it won’t have eternal power in it, and it will be just a small slice of what you could have done, if the Lord was doing it through you.

Talent is a great thing to have. It’s a gift from God.
But having talent without anointing is kind of like having seatwarmers in a car but not having an engine under the hood.

God can work in spite of our lack of talent. Through the anointing, even our weakness can become a playing field for the Lord to show off His strength.
Ask Moses.

But talent alone isn’t enough to get the job done if you don’t have God’s power behind it. You’ll come up short in the end.
Ask Samson.

I’m asking God today for a fresh anointing on my life.

This blog post was originally posted on November 3rd, 2011

When we pray or have faith for something and it doesn’t happen there’s a tendency to think that the prayers were wasted or that the faith was wasted. And so we don’t even want to ever bother again.

In actuality God never wastes our faith. If you pray for something and that particular thing doesn’t happen, who’s to say God isn’t taking the faith and the prayers that you prayed about that situation and posting them to another account in your life that you’re going to see at a future time?

You may pray that God would sell your house and your house doesn’t sell. But maybe in seven years you get a deal on a house that is life-changing that you never could have imagined at the time. Or maybe you have been unable to have children and you’re praying desperately and faithfully that God will give you a child. In your mind you’re thinking that means that you’ll get pregnant. Nothing happens. But maybe three years later you have the opportunity to adopt and have the child you were praying for so faithfully. Now you can’t imagine your life without that child.

Who’s to say that God did not take the faith that you exerted toward one prayer that He chose not to answer, and apply your faith to answer another prayer that you didn’t even know to pray?

God is not wasting your faith. He has not wasted your prayers. He has something for you. It just might be something you didn’t know you were asking for at the time.

This blog post was originally posted on July 14, 2010

Once, in the middle of a life threatening storm, Paul spoke up with courage:
“Last night an angel of the God whose I am and whom I serve stood beside me and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul.’”
Acts 27:23-24

I like the way Paul ordered that:
1. Whose I am
2. Whom I serve
Identity (whose I am) comes before activity (whom I serve).

I need to remember that when I’m heavy with inadequacy and uncertainty.
Who I am in Christ comes before what I do for Christ.

God the Father said He was well pleased with Jesus before Jesus ever performed a public miracle.

Identity supersedes activity every time. Remember that next time you feel like you don’t have what it takes to do what God has called you to do.

And let what you do flow from who you are.

(originally posted July 07, 2008)

As you navigate the story that is unfolding in your life, you’ll be quick to find that discouragement is everywhere. It seems that the harder you run after God, the harder the devil is going to try to prevent you from getting where you’re going. And all he really has to do to trip us up is drop one little hint of discouragement in our ears.

You’re unworthy.

You’re a terrible father.

You’ll never be any better than this.

He’s said it to me and I know that he’s said it to you. The worst part is, the devil doesn’t necessarily speak in complete lies. He gives us half-truths with just enough reality to hit us between the eyes. But here’s an easy way that you can overcome those conniving schemes:

Finish the devil’s sermons.

It’s simple. The devil is only giving you half of the truth—give him the other half.

Yes, I am unworthy. I am absolutely nothing without Christ. But thankfully, He died so that I may become a new creation, void of you and full of the purpose that He has for my life.

No, I may not be a perfect father, but I am loved unconditionally by a perfect father who breathed the stars yet knows the number of hairs on my head. And He’s making me more like Him every day.

You’re right. on my own accord, I can’t do any better than this. But I am not doing this by myself—I serve the LORD, who is able to do immeasurably more than I could ask or imagine.

You don’t have to be Charles Spurgeon to preach the devil out of your life. The name of Jesus alone is enough to send your enemy running for the hills.

The devil will always try to show you the downside of your story. Make him pay. Show him who Jesus says you are.

You’re charging into a new year with at least one major problem (probably several) eating away at your nerves.
What do you do?

It’s better to face your problems than to run from them. Everyone knows that.
But for those of us starting out 2012 believing the supernatural favor of God is working to our advantage for His glory,
Might I suggest…there’s a third, and infinitely better, option:

Make the Spirit-led decision to elevate above your problem before you deal with it at all. Whatever you have to deal with today, first determine to access the perspective shaped by the promises & presence of Christ.
Now you’re ready to deal with your issue from the highest level-the very altitude and airspace of God. Your doubts and worries won’t loom so large from up there.

If you stand toe to toe with your issue, addiction, deficit, fear, or temptation, you’ll be intimidated by what you see & shut down before you get the chance to fight.

But if you get up above the issue, and refuse to wrestle around with it in the mud of self-centered thinking and faithless strategy, everything about your approach will change.

I love how, in the book of Revelation, in the midst of unbearable persecution and mind boggling uncertainty, Jesus gave John a simple first step:
“Come up here…”
-Revelation 4:1

See, Jesus knew something about John that is just as pertinent to you and me:
If we get up where Jesus is, we’ll see what He sees.
When we see what He sees, we’ll know what He knows…
And we’ll be empowered to do whatever He calls us to do.

When we take our seats in heavenly places with Christ by focusing on Him, surrendering to Him, and trusting in Him, it positions us to descend on our problems with a divine confidence.

Lots of times, our main problem isn’t our problem. Our biggest problem is our perspective on our problem.
Get up above the domain of hand to hand combat today. You’re not strong enough to take much ground grappling like that.
Instead, take it to the Lord in prayer. And launch an aerial assault on the devil that will blow him back 10,000 miles away from the plans God has for you.

Looking back at some of my top viewed blogs posts of this past year, I’ve decided to post a few that people really seemed to enjoy. Here’s one that got a lot of response. Check it out.

The Real Competition

One of the biggest dangers that any church faces when trying to reach people who are far from God is comparing itself to other churches.

How good your preaching is compared to them.
How good your worship experiences are compared to them.
How good your videos are compared to them.

This is dangerous. But probably not for the reasons you’re thinking. Yes, the dangers of jealousy and competition are there. But that’s not what I’m talking about.

It’s dangerous because if you want to reach other people for Christ, your competition isn’t other churches. It isn’t a matter of if you have better music than other churches. Better videos than other churches. Even better community than other churches. That’s not your standard of comparison.

Why? Because none of the people you’re trying to reach are going to those churches. When a lost person walks out your doors, their first thought probably isn’t going to be “man, that was better than that other church.” They haven’t been to that other church. Or possibly any church.

The point of comparison for lost people are things that lost people see. That lost people listen to. That lost people experience.

That’s your real competition. So for example, when we decorate for Christmas, I don’t want it to be as good or better than other churches in town. I want it to be as good or better than anything they’d see at the best mall in town. Because that is what every person who has never stepped foot inside of a church before is consciously or unconsciously comparing us to.

Now we do have something that is incomparable and unbeatable: Jesus Christ. I’m not saying we have to make Him look better because He’s not up to the job. And obviously the movement of the Holy Spirit is not dependent on how we measure up to the outside world.

However, we do have to communicate Jesus through certain mediums. I believe these mediums should actually live up to the message and person they’re communicating. And be something that people can relate to. So all of them have to be at their best.

Some people might think that this is shallow. And yes, it is shallow. But that’s where people are, and we have to meet them there. Or we might meet them nowhere.

I’d rather be considered shallow and be surrounded by people who have found life in Christ than be considered deep and be alone. Or surrounded only by people who knew Jesus long before they ever knew me. Lost people can’t become deep Christians until they first become Christians period.

And if part of making that happen means us raising our game and showing the world that the people of God can be just as creative and excellent in what they produce, why would we hesitate to do so?

As 2011 comes to an end, I’ve decided to post some of the top viewed blogs of the year that people really seemed to enjoy. Here’s one that seemed to encourage a lot of you.

Hide and Seek

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter.
Proverbs 25:2

There’s a reason God’s will in specific situations is so difficult to know sometimes. Why it can be so hard to know what God wants you to do.

Who to date.
Where to go to college.
Who to marry.
Where to move.
What job to take.

It’s not because you’re not praying. You’re probably praying a lot. It’s not because you don’t want to know His will. Many of you really do.

According to this verse, it’s because God conceals.
But why? After all, that seems counterintuitive to God’s purposes and using you in them.

The reason isn’t because God doesn’t want you to know His will. He wants you to know it more than you want to know it. It’s because God wants something more for you than that.

Him.

God’s not up in heaven hiding His will hoping you’ll never be able to find it. But he does play hide and seek. Not because He doesn’t want us to find His will but because He wants us to find Him. If He put it out in plain view, we would seek His will instead of seeking Him.

That’s why he conceals it. That’s why it’s so hard.

God’s not trying to make His will plain. His will isn’t the main objective. He is the main objective. He wants you to discover Him most of all.

God isn’t the shortcut to your best life. He is your best life.
God doesn’t want to give you the guide for your life. He wants to be your Guide.

The scariest possibility for your life isn’t getting God’s will wrong. It’s getting God’s will right but barely coming to know God in the process.

You could love the right woman but lose your first love.
You could find the right career but then make it your god.

That’s why He doesn’t just write His will for you in the clouds. At the end of the process He wants you to know something far greater than what you should do with your life or what you should do next.

He wants you to know who He is.

If you really walk with Jesus you will be in a constant state of reinvention.
If you can receive this, and are willing to participate in it, congratulations. You’re in for a lifetime of increasing conformity to the character of Christ. And God will supply all of the raw material for the required renovations.

If you aren’t into that sort of thing-if you’re determined to stay stuck in the ways of yesterday-you won’t make it very far toward God’s goal for your life. You’ll also get sick of yourself more and more each time you resist the transforming
work of God’s Spirit. It’s a losing proposition from every perspective.

Are you willing to pray today: God, make me over, and over, and over…?
As many times as it takes?
And whatever it costs?

I tweeted last night:
An ounce of anointing is more precious than a thousand tons of talent.

When I say anointing, I’m talking about the supernatural enabling of the Holy Spirit.

If you’ve got it, you’ll do greater things for God than you can imagine, and live a remarkable life for His glory.

If you don’t, you won’t.

If you’re anointed by God, you’ll do things far beyond your capability. You’ll live in a constant state of humility, because you need the Lord for every step, every breath, every situation. You’ll live in constant amazement at all the ways He comes through for you.

If you’re not anointed by God, even your strengths will become weaknesses in time. You’ll still do good stuff, maybe even impressive stuff. But it won’t have eternal power in it, and it will be just a small slice of what you could have done, if the Lord was doing it through you.

Talent is a great thing to have. It’s a gift from God.
But having talent without anointing is kind of like having seatwarmers in a car but not having an engine under the hood.

God can work in spite of our lack of talent. Through the anointing, even our weakness can become a playing field for the Lord to show off His strength.
Ask Moses.

But talent alone isn’t enough to get the job done if you don’t have God’s power behind it. You’ll come up short in the end.
Ask Samson.

I’m asking God today for a fresh anointing on my life.

When it comes to trying to figure out God’s plan for your life, there are two questions you can ask. One wrong. One right.

Wrong Question:
God, what’s your plan for my life?

Right Question:
God, what’s your Plan, and how can my life fit into it?

That might seem like semantics, but it makes all the difference in the world.

God’s Plan isn’t first and foremost about us. His plan for us isn’t about us either.
It’s not about our lives.
It’s not about our careers.
It’s not about our future spouse.
It’s not about our anything.

It’s about His Purpose, His Kingdom, His Glory. His Plan.
And then about how our lives.
Our careers.
Our future spouse.
Our everything.

Fit into it.

Start asking the right question. And you’ll start figuring out God’s plan.
For His life. And yours.

When you look at the miracles in the Bible, you see two themes consistently emerge when it comes to the person involved in the miracle.

1) Many biblical miracles were the person’s own initiative, not God’s idea.

Like the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ garment.
Or Namaan who went to Elisha for healing for his leprosy.
Or the centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant.

And 2) many biblical miracles involved the person’s natural action, not just God’s supernatural intervention.

Like when the Israelites had to walk through the Red Sea after God parted it.
Or when the blind man had to wash himself in the pool of Siloam.
Or when Joshua and his army had to march around the walls of Jericho before it fell.

The bottom line is that when it comes to the miracles you want to see in and through your life, God wants your involvement. I’ve said it before, but most Christians don’t want miracles, we want magic. We want God to wave a magic wand at our problem or need.

We want God to send the money out of the sky.
God forbid we would cut up our credit cards.

We want God to heal us of our physical ailments.
God forbid we change our eating habits or start exercising.

We want to see God do miraculous things through us.
God forbid we get off the couch and give God a platform off of which He can work.

I’m sorry, but God’s miracles don’t work like that. Of course they involve His unmistakable power and provision. Otherwise they wouldn’t be miracles. But they also require your initiative and involvement. Otherwise they would just be magic.

Maybe we could sum it up like this:
Without God, you cannot.
Without you, God will not.

Ask yourself two questions today.
1)   What miracle do you need or want to see God accomplish in or through your life?
2)   What involvement is God requiring from you before He accomplishes the miracle?

For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith…Do your best to come to me quickly…When you come, bring the cloak I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments.
2 Timothy 4:6-7, 9, 13

Paul is about to die, and he knows it.

And yet other than a cloak to stay warm, all he wants are his “scrolls,” which most scholars believe are the fragments of the Old Testament that he owned.

This doesn’t make much sense. He’s already written 2/3 of the New Testament and hammered out his theology. He’s not going to preach another sermon. Lead another Bible study. Write another letter. He knows the Scriptures backwards and forwards – enough to at least sustain a couple more quiet times until he’s executed.

Why does Paul want to read the Bible when He’s about to die and meet its Author face to face?

Because Paul is greedy.
Greedy for God.

We should expect nothing less. After all, this is the same Paul who said he wanted “to know Christ and the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3:10). Paul wanted every bit of God that he could get until his last dying breath. Every insight about Him he could glean from His word. Every ounce of His presence and power. And nothing less would satisfy him, even in his last moments.

I think that should be a challenge to all of us. It’s good to be greedy for God. It’s good to get all you can of Him.

Greed often gets a bad rap, and usually rightfully so. But I’m coming to find that greed isn’t bad in and of itself. Greed is just an insatiable appetite. In its bad form, it has become fixed on something that 1) is limited in its ability to give and 2) isn’t the true source of everything our souls desire.

Well, God is the source of everything. And the only lid on God’s ability to give of Himself is our capacity to receive. So it’s good to be greedy for Him.

God is never going to run out of love. He’s never going to run out of joy. He’s never going to run out of grace and our mercy. He’s never going to run out of anything.

So why should we be content with settling for scraps from His table?

This past weekend we continued our Hebrews XII series where we’re taking four weeks to study one of the most significant chapters in the entire Bible. We came around verses 4-13 and studied God’s discipline.

I know, fun, right? But it actually ended up touching a lot of people. It was one of those words that was both challenging and encouraging at the same time, and sometimes that’s the word we need the most.

One of the things I tried to do during the sermon was give some particulars about God’s discipline. It’s something we all undergo, but from my experience, it’s not something many of us understand in terms of why God does it or what it looks like. Since the message seemed to strike such a chord in people, I thought I’d post these particulars and give you the who, when, and what of God’s discipline.

Whether you go to Elevation or not, I think they’ll both challenge and encourage you today. I gave pretty much all of these at one point or another in the sermon, but I wanted to consolidate them so you could have them in one place to go back to and reflect on.

As you read these, remember, human fathers do what they think best. God does what He knows is best. He’s the perfect parent. Read this list. Reflect for a few minutes about how God might be correcting you right now. And then choose to cooperate with what God is doing in you.

Who does God discipline:
His children. Correction isn’t a sign of rejection.
It’s a sign you’ve already been accepted.
Not unbelievers. He draws them to Himself.
Or He punishes their sin if they refuse Him.

When does God discipline:
When we become too comfortable.
When we become proud in our hearts.
When we become calloused or stubborn.
When we are in a pattern of disobedience.
When He wants to promote us to a new level.

What does God’s discipline look like:
Sometimes, a conviction in our heart.
Sometimes, a hard word He speaks through others.
Sometimes, a difficulty He allows us to go through.
Sometimes, a distance He allows us to feel.
Sometimes, the natural consequence of our sin He allows to play out.

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
Genesis 11:1-4

The story of the tower of Babel is usually used as a warning against pride. And that’s valid. But I choose to also see it as a challenge.

Using the technology of their day – brick baking – mankind tried to build a tower to reach the heavens to make their name great. And they almost succeeded.

Think about that for a second. Mankind had the skill to accomplish this feat. They had the drive. The vision. All they lacked was God’s favor. That made all the difference, of course, but look at what they were willing to try without it.

This gets me thinking about the God-sized mandate that Jesus gave to us right before He left the earth in Matthew 28:19-20:
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

If the people of Babel could do all they did to make their name great, why should anything be impossible to us as a Church as we seek to make the Name of Jesus great? If the people in Genesis 11 could accomplish so much having God against them, how much more should we accomplish having God for us?

Maybe it would help if I put this in modern terms:
If Mark Zuckerberg can build Facebook for his own glory, what can we as the church build for the glory of God? If Oprah can start a network to cover the earth with Oprah, why shouldn’t we use every resource at our disposal to cover the earth with the name of Jesus?

The people of Babel built a brick tower for their own glory. Zuckerberg and Oprah are making their names great.

The tower came down. Their names are going to be forgotten.

As much as that is a testimony to the futility of human pride, it’s just as much a question to us:
What then will you build for the glory of God?
Whose Kingdom will last forever. Whose Name will be praised for eternity.

The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the LORD. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves.” Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?” “Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, “except a little oil.” Elisha said, “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few. Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.”
2 Kings 4:1-4

The story goes on to tell us that the oil continued flowing until she ran out of jars with which to fill it. And she was able to keep her sons out of slavery.

All this woman could focus on was what she didn’t have. Elisha, on the other hand, was interested in her exception. And it was her exception that became the vessel for a miracle.

People often excuse themselves from the miraculous because they don’t have a lot to work with or offer God to work with. Maybe it’s their skills. A lack of resources. Or little experience.

Whatever the reason, what they don’t realize is that that in itself makes them a candidate for the power of God to flow through their lives. God has a history of using what little someone has to do great things only He can do.

God used a shepherd’s staff to part the Red Sea.
He used five loaves and two fish to feed thousands.
He even used an ass (Numbers 22, King James Version) to talk to someone and save their life.

One of the greatest strategies of the enemy is to get you to focus on what you don’t have, what you used to have, or what someone else has that you wish you had instead of looking in your house and asking the question, “God, what can you do through what I have?”

Here’s the profound truth you need to begin embracing today: All God needs to work miracles in your life is all you have. A God who created something out of nothing can also create something great out of little.

God can do exceptional things with your exception.

Jesus left there and went to his hometown…When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed…Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son? And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith.
Mark 6:1-6

Have you ever wondered why some churches and people experience the power of God on a greater level than others? Why some people seem to be magnetic for miracles and the extraordinary, while others only ever hear about them?

There’s a lot of reasons, but I believe this passage gives us one huge aspect of the answer.

At this point in His ministry, Jesus was on a roll.  In fact, in this chapter of Mark we pick up in the middle of a regional speaking tour and Jesus was practically packing out coliseums with people who came to hear Him and be healed by Him. You would expect him to be able to roll into his hometown and do even greater things. But that’s not what happens. Instead, all He can do is heal a common cold.

Why does the Bible say Jesus couldn’t do miracles? Not wouldn’t, but couldn’t?

When you read the above passage, it’s pretty clear. The miracle working power of Jesus wasn’t limited because His ability subsided. But because they did not believe. And their unbelief was tied directly to what they saw, and they didn’t see much. It goes back to the perception principle I explained last Thursday. Because they did not perceive, they were not able to receive.

Like most American Christians, their exposure to Jesus was great. But also like most American Christians, their experience of Him was limited. That’s why He was amazed at their lack of faith. And that’s why His power was limited.

I believe that the reason some churches see God show up in extraordinary measures and do remarkable things and other churches are dying on the vine has nothing to do with the power of God. God is powerful everywhere.  He’s powerful on every continent in every time zone. He has the ability to change lives anywhere you go.

The determining factor in the activity of God in our churches and in our lives isn’t even who Jesus is. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.

It really comes down to this:
It’s not who He is, it’s how we see Him.

These people saw Him as a carpenter. That’s what they got.
Others had seen Him as someone capable of miracles. That’s what they got.

The same principle is true today.

If you see Jesus as a good teacher, that’s what you’re going to get.
If you see Him as someone who used to move in power, that’s what you’re going to get.
If you see Him as someone who still moves in power, that’s what you’re going to get.

When it comes to Jesus, what you see is what you get.

Jesus’ infinite miracle-working power hasn’t changed. It’s still the same, yesterday, today, and forever. What can change today is how you choose to see how that power is available to you. And what can then change is how much you will witness that power flowing through your life.

Abbey was crying obnoxiously one night recently. In the early days of your baby’s life, you think crying is cute. As time goes on, you think it’s a curse.

I started to complain a little to myself, but then God cut me off with a question:
You prayed for that baby, and now you’re complaining about a blessing that you wanted me to bring into your life?

That will shut you up quickly.

It’s interesting how God’s blessings can become our curses. What you spent so much time praying for or thanking God for eventually becomes something you complain about. From my experience, it usually happens right about the time that the blessing leads to an inconvenience. In my case, it was sleep. But it could be anything.

My guess is that the same has happened to you in some capacity. When did your blessings become curses?

Maybe it was when you begged God to grow your church. But then you started to complain about your lack of space when He did.

Maybe it was when you finally got married, but then realized that the person you married wasn’t a mirror image of yourself. And they wouldn’t change.

Maybe it was when you got a significant raise, but then realized there were significant taxes to go along with it.

Whenever it was and whatever it was about, it’s time to regain some perspective. After all, why would God continue to bless people who convert His blessings into curses?

For me, one realization has helped more than any:
Many times your curses are really just high-class problems other people would consider themselves blessed to have.

People would die to have your church’s growing pains.
People would die to get married.
People would die to have a job, much less get a raise.

So I think we can learn to live with our blessings, even if they include a few accompanying inconveniences.

When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the LORD called to Moses from within the cloud.
Exodus 24:15-16

I think many people have a major misconception when it comes to knowing God’s will. We often assume that it’s a streamlined, expedient process.

You pray and immediately know what you’re supposed to do.
You fast and the answer you’re looking for magically comes before the second skipped meal.
You open your Bible and it lands on a random verse in Leviticus that tells you exactly what to do.

Sometimes that happens. But not usually. Usually it’s more like what Moses experienced on the mountain.

Moses was at Mt. Sinai to meet with the Lord and receive directions and the Law for the people. He wanted to know the will of God. God wanted him to know it even more. But then Moses just sat there. God eventually spoke to him, but it was only after Moses had had to wait for six days in cloudy silence.

That should be encouraging to those of you who still don’t know God’s will for a particular situation or your life in general and you think you never will. The will of God often takes time to ascertain. Cloudy conditions usually come before clear commands. Sometimes God does speak to you immediately and clearly. When He does, be thankful for those times and act immediately and boldly. But usually, you’re going to spend days, months, maybe even years in the clouds before you hear anything.

If that’s you right now, don’t head back down the mountain just yet. God has clear direction coming for you. And remember, you’re not alone. God’s silence is not equivalent to God’s absence. God’s glory was on the mountain with Moses every one of those six days before Moses heard anything.

God is going to speak to you. He wants you to know His will for your life more than you want to know His will for your life. Just on His timetable.

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
Luke 22:31-32

You can’t disappoint Jesus.
Just ask Peter.

On the surface, it looks like Jesus’ prayer failed. After all, last time I checked, this is the same Peter who would go on to deny Jesus three times. It seems that Jesus would have every reason to be disappointed. But that’s only if we assume that Jesus means He’s praying that Peter’s faith would not fail at all.

Peter’s faith did fail.
But it did not fail completely.

Jesus knew Peter was going to deny Him. Jesus wasn’t praying against that. He was praying that it wouldn’t be the final word for Peter. And of course, His prayer was answered. Peter faltered in his faith. But he returned and became the leader of the early church.

Peter couldn’t disappoint Jesus. And neither can you. Do you know what to disappoint means? It means give somebody an outcome other than what they expected.  That’s less than their hope.

How can you give God an outcome that He didn’t expect?

God knows you’re going to fail. That thing you did yesterday: Jesus already knew you were going to do it before you did it. The same with the thing you did today, and the thing you’ll do tomorrow.

That might sound scary at first, but it should actually encourage you. God knows about it already, has known about it from eternity, but He hasn’t given up on you. So why have you given up on yourself?

And even more than that, it should encourage you because even if your faith does fail for a moment, you will ultimately succeed. The same God who knows you’re going to fail is the same God who already has a plan in place to restore you when you do.

There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.
Deuteronomy 15:11

People often ask, why doesn’t God bless poor Christians? Or the poor in general? Why doesn’t He just supernaturally meet the needs of His people who don’t have the basic necessities in life?

I don’t know. I can’t answer that. None of us can.

And after reading the scripture above, I don’t think we’re even supposed to. We need to quit asking the question, “why doesn’t God bless the poor,” and start realizing that we are their blessing. We are simultaneously the answer to our own question and to their need.

I wonder sometimes if we like to put the ball in God’s court because then we don’t have to do anything with it. If I ask questions about God’s sovereign decisions, I don’t have to face my own sinful indecision.

This is true not only in regards to poverty, but also sharing my faith. My response to natural disasters. Etc. Etc.

For too long we’ve wrestled with the abstract why of the first sentence in Deuteronomy 15:11. I think it’s time we wrestled with the practical what of the second sentence. It’s time to reframe our question. To reframe our entire lives, really.

Instead of asking, “why doesn’t God…,” a much better question to ask would be, “why don’t I…”

Much more perplexing than God’s seeming inactivity towards the poor should be my overt inactivity towards the poor. God has been active. He’s given them us. We are their blessing.

Follow has been simply incredible.
2,158 baptisms.
Countless lives impacted for eternity.

But now as we close out this monumental series, I want to give you a closing word of encouragement. While this is especially for the people of Elevation, and especially to those who were baptized, this really applies to anyone, anywhere.

Get connected to the body of Christ.

People in society have a very low value on truly being connected. Sadly, those in the church are not much better. With their family. With spiritual leaders. But most of all, with the church.

And that’s sad because there are blessings that flow from being connected to the body of Christ. You see this so clearly in passages of scripture like Ephesians 4:11-16. It’s a little long, but go ahead and read the whole passage:
It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Did you catch that? You can’t truly grow into everything God wants you to be unless you are connected to the local church. It truly is through connection that all the good things of God flow through our lives. There simply is no such thing as a mature Christian who is not vitally connected to the local church.

You must follow Jesus for yourself, but you can’t follow Him by yourself.

So wherever you are, get connected. Stay planted in the house of God. At Elevation. At another church. Wherever.

As I’ve said elsewhere, at the end of your life, God’s not going to be impressed or pleased that you saw what He was doing at ten different churches.He’s going be more pleased that you were a part of what He was doing at one church.

So find one. Plug into it.
And get the blessing of connection.

Transferring credits can be a maddening process.

I experienced this once. I started seminary in one place and then we moved to start the church, so I had to end up changing schools. And sure enough, some of the credits that I earned at the first school wouldn’t transfer to the other. It was frustrating to say the least. It felt like my scholastic achievements were for nothing.

There’s a similar credit transfer problem that happens in the Kingdom of God when it comes our accomplishments. It can be even more frustrating and maddening because we’re so accustomed to operating according to the world’s standards of measuring success. But it’s something we have to take to heart because it’s the way God works.

The credits of men on earth don’t transfer to the Kingdom of God. What I mean is that just because the world says you’re successful doesn’t mean you’ve impressed God one bit.

God really doesn’t care about how much money you’ve earned.
Where you’ve gotten your degree from.
Or what letters make up the title in front of your name.

The things that we think are major accomplishments aren’t to God.

For at least two reasons.
First, it’s kind of hard to brag to a God who spoke the universe into existence. I just can’t see God being blown back by our resumé. Especially when the source of all of our accomplishments is Him. Also, it’s kind of insulting to His grace to think that any amount of achievement could earn the love and favor that has already been achieved for you.

Second, I don’t think God is looking for the same things we are. If you take a cursory look through the Bible, these were the kinds of people and things that stood out to Him:

A young shepherd on the backside of nowhere whose heart was after Him. (1 Samuel 16)
The faith of a man who shouldn’t have had any. (Luke 7:1-10)
The meager but total generosity of a peasant woman compared to the lavish but incomplete giving of the rich around her. (Luke 21:1-4)

I’m not saying you need to downgrade your job. Or make yourself poor. Or that your success and accomplishments can’t be used for God’s glory.

I’m just saying that you shouldn’t assume that you’re at the front of the line to be used for His glory because of them. Besides, in God’s order of things, the front isn’t necessarily where you want to be anyways:

So the last will be first, and the first will be last.
Matthew 20:16

I was talking to another pastor the other day and he wanted to connect me with a guy who could help me. We were working through some things at the church and he thought his friend could be of assistance.

He’d known the guy forever and he’s really great. So he just pulled out his phone, hit one button, and sent me all of this guy’s phone numbers, emails, contacts, etc. With the push of one button, he basically gave me access to a relationship that he’d been building for years.

It got me thinking about how through salvation, in one moment, Jesus gave us access to the Father. It’s so simple, yet remarkably profound when you think through some of the implications.

In one moment, Jesus did for you what you couldn’t do for yourself with all of your moments combined.

In one moment, all of God’s promises became available and applicable to you through Jesus.

In one moment, even your worst moments went from testifying against you to working for you.

In one moment, Jesus connected us with someone He has spent an eternity building a relationship with.

And because of that one moment, now we can spend an eternity of moments building that relationship, too.

I told this story a few weeks ago during one of our worship experiences, but I thought it was something all of you could be encouraged by. Especially those of you facing difficult circumstances right now.

I’ve told the story of my grandfather before in different venues. Papa, as we called him, was one of the greatest men of God I’ve ever known. But he also experienced one of the greatest hardships I’ve ever seen. Papa watched his wife of over 50 years slowly lose her mind and body to Alzheimer’s. By the end, she started to literally scream curses and obscenities at him. But he handled it with more grace and faith than you can imagine. Regardless of grandmother’s condition, he would go every day to the nursing home and comb her hair and tell her she was beautiful until they would kick him out.

Papa died about eighteen months before Grandma passed away. The final scenes of their marriage were pitiful, really, from a purely earthly perspective. Healing never came. And it broke Papa’s heart. But still, surprisingly, every time you would ask Papa how he was doing, he’d always say the same thing: 100%.

As a kid, it always bothered me that he said that because I felt like it couldn’t be true. His health was getting worse. His wife’s health was getting much worse. And everything he loved in his life and worked to build in his life was going away.

It wasn’t until years later after he passed away that I finally understood why he could say it. I was reflecting and praying about it, about how he could say he was 100% at the worst time in his life. It still sounded like a lie. He wasn’t 100%. He wasn’t even 50%. He wasn’t even 10%.

But then I felt like the Lord spoke back to me a sentence that completely flipped my perspective: It depends on what you’re measuring.

If you’re measuring his circumstances, he’s not 100%. But if you’re measuring his confidence in Christ…If you’re measuring his hope in a future home in heaven and that one day all things will be made new…If you’re measuring the faithfulness of God towards him despite his circumstances, then he was 100% all of the time.

If you were to measure how any of us feel in any given moment, none of us could ever say 100%. Your status is going to change with the shifting sands of your circumstances. You’re going to have bad days. The carpet of your life is going to be ripped out from underneath you a few times in your life. And in those moments, the temptation is going to be to equate your condition with our circumstances.

Don’t.

I don’t know you. I don’t know the circumstances you’re facing. The pain you’re enduring. What I do know is that most of you would say you’re not 100%. In fact, you may think you’re in the single digits. But regardless of what you’re going through, I’d still say the same thing to you God said to me:

It depends on what you’re measuring.

Although it’s difficult, choose to see things with a new perspective. You’re 100%. Not because of your circumstances. But because of the fact that regardless of your circumstances, Christ is 100% with you and for you. 100% of the time.

It’s common practice to teach your kids to say ‘please’ and then ‘thank you’ when they have requests. It’s considered proper protocol. And when talking to adults, it is. But with God, things are a little bit different.

God has a protocol for how He wants to be approached. And it starts with thanksgiving:
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Psalm 100:4-5

With God, ‘thank you’ should always come before ‘please.’ The first thing that needs to come out of my mouth in prayer and worship needs to be praise for who God is and what He has done. Not just instructions for what I want or even need Him to do.

Thank you is the key that opens the door to God’s house. There’s a lot of reasons for this, but more than anything, it’s about perspective.

If you thank God for everything before you ask Him for anything, it makes you realize you deserve nothing. It gives you the worldview that but for the grace of God, you would be in hell. And in turn, it makes you even more thankful because you’re not. And because God still answers your prayers.

Additionally, starting with ‘thank you’ is just practical. When we start with praise, we establish the goodness and greatness of God right off the bat. Now all of our subsequent prayers and complaints can be answered by a good and great God who can both respond to us and who wants to.

It’s impossible to be self-absorbed and God-conscious at the same time. Realign your perspective in prayer today.

Start with ‘thank you.’ And then move on to ‘please.’

You may say to yourselves, “These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?” But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt.
Deuteronomy 7:17-18

Nothing can sabotage radical belief in the promises of God quite like calculation.

The Israelites were facing a seemingly insurmountable task. They were about to enter the Promised Land and face not only a multitude of enemies, but enemies who were clearly stronger and more capable than them. God knew what would happen: they would ask the faith-shattering calculative question, how?

And so He preempted their question with an instruction: remember Egypt.
Essentially, don’t try to calculate how I’ll do it…just remember how I did it.

God’s instructions haven’t changed much thousands of years later for those of us facing uncertainty as to how God is going to come through for us. You might be wondering how God is going to provide for your family now that you’ve lost your job. Or how He is going to cover the costs of your education. Or how He is going to do any of the other number of things you need Him to do.

Well, I don’t know how. Neither do you. And the truth is, we don’t have to know how. We just need to know that He can. And the way we know that He can is by calling to mind what He’s done.

And He’s done plenty. Your life is littered with signposts of God’s faithfulness. Regardless of your circumstances, take a moment and take a look at them. Remember Egypt. Remember what God has already overcome in your past as you face your present. Then leave the how to Him.

While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost.
Luke 24:36-37

What an ironic statement. The disciples were precisely scared and frightened. They probably feared for their lives at the hands of the Jewish leaders. And now a man they thought was dead had just walked through the doors and appeared to them out of nowhere. They had every apparent reason to be afraid and feel no peace at all.

Yet that’s what Jesus proclaims to them.  I don’t think it’s because Jesus is insensitive. I actually think He’s just stating a matter of fact: He is now with them in the room. And so now peace is with them in their circumstances.

It’s interesting that the settings that we associate peace with are so different from what God associates peace with. For God, peace has nothing to do with the absence of a catalyst of fear. Instead, it has everything to do with the presence of Christ.

Peace isn’t a clear doctor’s report.
Peace isn’t when there’s no conflict in your marriage.
Peace isn’t absolute certainty about your future.

It’s the knowledge of the fact that Christ is with you even if the report comes back with news of cancer. That Christ is with you in the midst of tense moments in your marriage. That Christ is with you in your present, and He’s already waiting for you in your future.

God brings his peace into situations where we’re most afraid and most frightened, not where there is no fear or no trepidation. It’s in the moments when we need God’s peace most desperately that He supplies it most abundantly.

I think what we really want isn’t peace. It’s calm conditions. Unfortunately, Jesus never promised us that. He only promised us His presence:
Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:20).

And it’s His presence that should fill us with peace in the midst of any unpeaceful circumstance we ever encounter.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.
Ephesians 1:7

This is an apparent contradiction. You usually don’t think of lavish and wisdom in the same breath or sentence.

Lavish means you are giving more than is necessary or giving it freely. In our time and in this economy, when we think of wisdom, we think of using the bare minimum. To lavish seems to be wasting, and wasting is not wise.

Especially when God is lavishing something on us. From every perspective, it seems like we’re a bad investment. It can be easy to feel like we are a waste of God’s resources or grace when we constantly keep blowing it.

But that’s not how God sees it. God in effect says to every one of us:
No. You’re a good investment from my perspective. I think you’re worth it. I’m not lavishing my grace on you because I don’t know how bad you are. I’m lavishing my grace on you because of how good I am. And because I know how great you can be. And I’m doing it with all wisdom.”

God doesn’t waste anything. There isn’t one drop of blood or one forgiven sin He wishes He could have back. Even when it applies to you. There will never be a moment where God has second thoughts about whether He should have lavished His grace on humanity. Even when it applies to you.

The reason God’s lavishing looks like foolishness is because all we see is who we were and who we are. God, on the other hand, already knows what we will become. In this life and in the next.

And He knows that the only way we’re going to become it is by His grace. His lavish grace. And that’s why He’s wise to give it.

Sometimes it can be very difficult to process your own sin. When we sin, there is usually an element of regret. Which is a good thing. If there was none, we should probably be worried about the condition of our hearts.

But usually we focus this regret on the desire to undo the past action. We wish we could go back and change what we’ve done.

But we can’t. It happened, and there’s no changing it. So we have to face an important truth if we don’t want to perpetually live in a state of regret and self-condemnation:
You can’t un-sin. Only re-pent.

Those words you shouldn’t have said…were said.
That guy you shouldn’t have slept with…you slept with.
The compromise that you made at work…you made.

What’s done is done. You can’t un-sin. And while it might be good that you wish you could, ultimately there’s no going backwards.

But there is a way forward. And the way forward is the path of repentance. You can’t un-say what you said, but you can re-pent of what you said. You can’t un-sleep with that guy, but you can re-pent to God for doing it.

As far as the past goes, what happened, happened. But as far as your future goes, with God it could be as if it never happened. You can get a fresh understanding with God. A chance to not let your past mistakes affect your future possibilities.

Un-sinning has an orientation towards the past. Re-pentance, on the other hand, is about the future. It’s dealing with your past disobedience towards God so you can walk towards your future relationship with Him. And that’s what He wants for you.

So if you’re dealing with the regrets and guilt of yesterday, or last month, or even ten years ago, don’t waste any more time playing the scenario over in your head and imagining doing it differently. It’s done.

Embrace the truth that God preempted your past faithlessness in your life with his past faithfulness on the cross. Re-pent of what you’ve done. And move on towards the future God has for you.

…He did while the man was sleeping.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. The Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
Genesis 2:20-22

Apart from his rib and his need, Adam really had nothing to do with Eve.
He had catalogued all of the animals, but he couldn’t find a suitable helper.
So God made him fall asleep.
And did in a moment what Adam couldn’t have done in a lifetime.

It’s no different with us. Some of God’s greatest achievements will have very little to do with our effort. They’ll come from an unconscious or unknown place.

Some of your best ideas will come to you seemingly from out of nowhere.
Some of your best sermons will take you twenty minutes to write.
Some of you greatest successes will happen not because of you. But despite you.

That doesn’t mean you don’t work hard. Or that everything is going to come easy for you all of the time. After all, how long do you think it took Adam to name all of the animals before God made Eve? A day? I doubt it.

It just means that even when your work is done, the work isn’t done.
It just means that even when you have exhausted all your efforts, God hasn’t even begun to exercise His.
It just means that we don’t have to live under the illusion that the world rises and falls on our abilities.

But on the One who can still do His best work even while we’re sleeping.

66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. 67 “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
John 6:66-68

When in difficult circumstances, you’ll sometimes hear people say, “I have options.” They don’t have to put up with “this kind” of treatment or conditions. They can walk. They can go elsewhere. They have options.

Peter was in this position. Jesus’ teaching was becoming difficult to understand. Opposition was starting to arise. All of a sudden, following Jesus wasn’t necessarily the thing he signed up for.

In a sense, Peter had other options. He could have left Jesus and gone back to fishing. He could have joined up with another rabbi. He could have done a number of other things.

But he didn’t. And that’s because unlike the people who left, Peter realized something: no other option could give him what Jesus could. Jesus alone had the words of life, even if they were difficult. He alone was worth giving his life to. He alone could give Peter what he really needed and wanted.

And for that reason, Peter had no other options.

In the same way, if you’ve chosen to be a follower of Christ, you really have no other options. Sure, you could sellout and walk away from God. Sure, you could take an easier path. But to what end?

What other option can work all things together for your good?
What other option is the Alpha before your circumstances and the Omega after them?
What other option has the words of eternal life?
What other option is even worth contemplating?

You have no other options. Even if following God gets difficult, you have no other options. Even if He asks you to do something that’s uncomfortable or costly, you have no other options.

But you also don’t need any.

By this is my father glorified, that you bear much fruit.
John 15:8

The glory of God is the single most important thing in the world to God. And therefore you glorifying God is the single most important thing you can do with your life.

But if we were honest, most of us have little to no idea what that actually means. We talk about God’s glory in abstract ways. We talk about glorifying God in convoluted ways. And so at the end of the day, we know what everything is for – the glory of God – and what we should do – glorify Him – but we don’t know how to actually do it.

Do we sing?
Do we simply go around saying “for your glory” after every little thing we do and at the end of every prayer?
Is it just that we know that everything is for the glory of God?
If I’m a professional athlete, is it mentioning God’s name after I win a game?
If I’m a designer, do I have to stitch a verse somewhere on my clothing?

It can get pretty complicated and nebulous. Luckily, Jesus says it’s actually pretty simple, straightforward, and concrete. It’s the practical fruit of your life that produces the glory of God.

In other words, I don’t know that it matters to God that you can articulate the Westminster Catechism’s definition of the glory of God and our duty to glorify Him. I don’t know that it matters if you top off your prayers with a little “glory of God” throw in at the end.

I think what matters to God and what actually glorifies Him is that you do life His way. That you live in such a way that God’s activity is actually visible in your life. And not just your words.

Let me put it simply:
When husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church, it glorifies God.
When you manage your finances God’s way, it glorifies God.
When you honor the people around you, it glorifies God.
When you love the waiter that’s serving you on Sunday and leave them a good tip, it glorifies God just as much as when you sang about His glory an hour earlier.

Let’s all stop the abstract “glory” talk and lets get down to the business of actually doing it. Press into Jesus. Live life the way He intends it. And let the fruit you’re producing do the talking for you.

You who fear him, trust in the LORD—
he is their help and shield.
Psalm 115:11

What an odd contradiction.
The Bible says to trust in the Lord. But it also says to fear the Lord.
Trust and fear seem to be mutually exclusive. But if you really think about it, you can’t separate them. They’re not contradictory at all.

You can’t trust God if you don’t fear Him. Although it sounds weird, I think it comes easily enough to us when you see it from a human perspective. My sons can’t fully trust me if they don’t fear me. I don’t mean fear in a bad way, just in the sense that they have a respect for the fact that I’m bigger than they are.

If something’s more powerful than you, it’s something you fear. But it’s also something you can trust because how is it going to protect you if it’s not bigger than you? I don’t trust my kids to protect me in my house. They trust me.

And therein lies the problem because in order to trust what you fear you have to believe it’s for you. This is where many Christians completely miss the point of God’s power and majesty. They see it as something to cower in front of. They act like fearing God is perpetually walking around with the knowledge that at any moment He could crush them. And they suspect He might. And that sometimes He might even want to.

That’s not the fear of God. True fear of God is rooted in trust. You will never fear God properly until you realize that the very thing that should make you fear Him is the very thing that He’s working for you.

The very power that should frighten your enemies should comfort you.
The very power that could crush you is carrying you.
The very power that could obliterate you is actually holding you together.

The second you became a child of God, God became 100% for you 100% of the time. And so now you can trust Him completely. And therefore fear Him properly.

Trust and fear aren’t enemies of each other. Trust and fear go hand in hand.

I’m convinced now more than ever that perspective can change everything. And this is probably nowhere truer than when we’re talking about the struggles we face in life.

Most of us think of our struggles – our circumstances, obstacles, and enemies –  as walls. They’re there to set us back or hold us back. We avoid them at all costs. When we encounter them, we usually turn back because after all, who wants to climb a wall? Especially a wall that can sometimes seem insurmountable.

But the truth is your circumstances and obstacles aren’t walls. They’re not there to set you back. In reality, they’re there to set you up.

Your struggles are not walls, they are doors.
Doors to the next level in your relationship with God. Doors that lead to a new horizon of His favor. They’re the necessary passageways through which all of us must pass to get to the place God is taking us to. And until you go through them, you can’t get there.

You can see this truth repeat itself throughout the Bible:
Slavery and prison put Joseph in position and served as his door to save millions.
Goliath gave David a stage and served as his door to public promotion.
The cross gave Jesus the means of His death and served as His door to save the world.

Imagine if any of these men had not gone through their doors. Imagine if instead, they saw them as walls. As things to be avoided or run from.

Millions would have starved to death in Egypt.
The whole David and Goliath metaphor would be shot.
We would still be in our sins.

Luckily all we can do is imagine. I hope the same can be said about the doors you face in life. I’d rather you imagine what life would have been like had you not opened them, than to have to imagine what it might look like on the other side if you had.

Whatever circumstance, struggle, or enemy you’re facing, don’t turn around. God has something for you on the other side better than what you have now. And it’s something you’ll never experience until you walk through the door.

Yes, it’s a difficult door to go through. But that’s only until you realize that the cost of not going through it far outweighs the cost of making it into a wall and forever imagining what was waiting on the other side for you.

But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.”
Numbers 20:12

Everyone is replaceable.

A lot of times we try to motivate people to embrace their calling by saying that if you don’t  ______, no one else can. You’re the person God has appointed to do this, and no one else can do it.

It sounds good. Very motivating.
But it simply isn’t true.

To the Israelites, it probably seemed like Moses was the only one who could lead them into the Promised Land. But he wasn’t. And so when he wasn’t willing to trust God enough to do what he had been commanded to do, the responsibility and privilege was handed over to someone else.

There’s a scary truth that we all must accept:
Like Moses, you and I are replaceable.

Do we really think that if we don’t use our profession as our pulpit, God won’t raise someone else up to do it?
Do we really think God can’t raise up another church to have the impact He wants ours to have if we don’t do what He’s calling us to do?
Do we really think God’s purpose depends solely on us?

God is not hamstrung by our disobedience. Or by our unwillingness to join in on what He wants to do in this world. In God’s economy, He values His purpose over the personality He uses to accomplish it. If you won’t do what God is calling you to do, He will simply find somebody else to do it.

Don’t get me wrong, God doesn’t just replace us on a whim or at the first sign of resistance on our part. He chases and pursues us. He is more patient than we can possibly imagine.

But the Creator of the Universe’s purpose is greater than any one person.
You are a part of the plan. But you are not the plan.
You’re special. Valuable. You’re one of a kind.
But you’re not irreplaceable.

This isn’t easy to accept, but it’s absolutely essential that we do it. It communicates urgency to us. Not in the sense that God is urgent for us to do something for Him. But urgency in the sense that the window of our opportunity to do something with God isn’t open indefinitely. It has to be seized now.

Believe it or not, there are countless people in this world who would do anything to take your spot in how God wants to use you. Don’t give them the opportunity. Whatever God is calling you to do, do it. And do it now.

God isn’t always likable.

We can pretend like He is. Like it’s always easy to understand His rationale behind the things He does. Or that undergoing His grace-filled discipline is a fun exercise.  But it’s not. It can actually be downright frustrating.

Now sometimes this is true because people try to fashion God into what they would want their ideal friend or version of God to be like.  They dictate the parts of God they can accept and the parts they won’t. You hear them say things like:
I wouldn’t like a God who did ________.
I couldn’t believe in a God who ________.

These people have already set the terms of a likable God. And that god tends to be a reflection of what they like about themselves. Until they come to understand that God is not limited to the confines of their own opinions and prejudices, there’s really not much you can do for them.

Some of you fall into that category. But most of you probably don’t. Instead you’re probably like other people who experience pain. Struggle. Disappointment. Discipline. And in these moments, if you were honest, you don’t always find God very likable.

You don’t say things like the other group. Yet you wonder:
How could God let this happen to me?
Why won’t He take me out of this situation?
I thought God was a God of grace. Why am I being disciplined for my sin?

What do we do in these situations? What do we do when we don’t like God?
Well, there’s not really much you can do. Whether you like it or not, we’re all going to undergo times of pain, struggle, disappointment, and discipline. There’s no way around it.

Instead I think the biggest thing is coming to an important realization:
It doesn’t matter if I like God.

God’s not interested in making me like Him. God’s not trying to stay in my good graces. What He is interested in is making me love Him more. What He’s interested in is doing what’s best for me. And what’s best for me isn’t always a likable thing.

God is like any good parent. A good parent doesn’t always try to be buddy, buddy with their kids. They love their kids but they’re not interested in whether their kids like them from day to day. They’ll let their kids learn tough lessons because they know that’s how they’ll grow and develop character. They’ll lay down the law if they’re disobedient. And that doesn’t diminish their love for their kids in the least bit. In fact, their kids will eventually realize it was because their parents loved them that they did things that didn’t make them like them.

God can handle you not liking Him. What he can’t handle is you not being like Him. What He can’t handle is you not truly loving Him. And so He’ll do what He has to do to make you into who He wants you to be.

You may not always like Him for it. But trust me, in the end, you’ll love Him for it.

I always used to associate the expression, “fall from grace,” with major acts of sin. Enormous failures. Significant falls.

People who fell from grace were people like Ted Haggard who lost his church and nearly lost his family after admitting to a homosexual affair after years of speaking out against homosexuality.

Or Tiger Woods who had an affair that cost him his family and tens of millions of dollars.

Or Charlie Sheen who…well, pulled a Charlie Sheen.

So falling from grace was where you had an affair. Cheated people. Engaged in an addictive behavior. Melted down in public. In general, had some kind of an enormous moral failure and lost everything. Your reputation. Your family. Your livelihood. In the case of Charlie Sheen, your sanity.

That’s what I used to think. And if you were honest, it’s probably what you associate falling from grace with as well.

But we’re both wrong. That’s not what it means. The true definition is astonishing. And infinitely more threatening, convicting, and relevant to most Christians than the stories of the men above.

If you go back to where the phrase comes from in the Bible, here’s what you read:
You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace (Galatians 5:4).

Crap. Ted, Tiger, and Charlie can no longer be our punching bags for falling from grace.

I understand why they are. They’re easy targets. They warn us of the danger of falling into sin and ruining our lives. And if we’re honest, they make us feel better about ourselves. But here’s the truth: Most Christians aren’t in danger of pulling a Charlie Sheen or a Tiger Woods or a Ted Haggard. We’re in danger of something far more deceptive and equally offensive to God.

And that’s living as if we have no need of His grace. It’s believing that all of our good deeds actually put us in a better position before God. That because we’re not Charlie, Tiger, or Ted, we’re closer to God, even if only by an inch.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Even if you read your Bible everyday and now have it memorized in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and the 1611 KJV.
Even if you never have an affair.
Even if you live a life that makes the Pharisees look like cat-strangling, coke-snorting, Wiccan worshippers.
Even if you have it all together.

When Jesus comes back and every knee bows and every tongue confesses that He is Lord, your head won’t be one centimeter higher than Charlie’s. Or Tiger’s. Or Ted’s. Or anyone else’s.

The quickest way to fall from grace is to think that there is an ounce of your life that isn’t dependent on it. Every step that you take to be acceptable to God in your own effort apart from Jesus and the cross is actually a step away from God.

Don’t fall away from grace. Ted needs it. Tiger needs it. Charlie needs it.
But so do you. And so do I.