Archive for the ‘Spiritual Growth’ Category

A couple of days ago I started a short series on four signs that we still don’t get it. On some of the elementary things that are keeping us from launching into a whole new dimension in our relationship with God and the calling He has placed on our lives.

Today we pick up with the second sign. Since I did a promo post for our Easter worship experiences yesterday, I’ll do a special Friday post with the final two signs tomorrow.

Here’s the second sign that you still don’t get it:

2. You’re still waiting for God’s will to “fall into place.”
You’re still waiting for God to bring the right man or woman into your life.
For the perfect job to come along.
For…

And in the meantime you’re not doing much of anything about it.

You’re hanging out in your basement.
You’re begrudgingly going about your present job.

You’re going to be waiting for a long time. Not because God doesn’t want to bring the right person into your life. Or the job you’ve been created for. Or anything else He wants for you. But because God’s will isn’t a matter of waiting. And it rarely falls into place all at once.

When you think about the will of God for your life, think less in terms of a big bang and more in terms of small sparks that lead to a large fire. It’s a matter of doing what you should be doing and letting God continually move you forward into what He wants you to be doing.

A lot of times we spend our greatest effort trying to uncover the mysteries of the parts of God’s will that we don’t understand rather than obeying the part of God’s will that we do understand.

And that’s His Word. When all else fails, God’s Word is His will.

So from the examples above:
It’s always God’s will for you to become the kind of man or woman that will be the husband or wife of someone else’s dreams.
It’s always God’s will to do all of your work as unto the Lord.

So start doing those things. And then trust God to use your present obedience to move you closer to your future assignments.

If you’re single, stop waiting for God to bring you the right person and start running after God with everything you’ve got. When you see someone running alongside of you, you’ll know God’s will has “fallen into place.” And while you’re at it, clean yourself up, put some product in your hair, and join the greeter team at your church.

Stop waiting for the perfect job to come along and start perfecting the job that you have. That way when the perfect job “falls into place,” you’ll be ready for it.

We don’t have to waste time wondering when and how God’s will is going to fall into place. Obedience that is active is way better than passive reflection. We find direction from God while we’re on the move. We know as we go. We set out and then God shows up.

We know God’s will by doing God’s will.

“Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered?
Matthew 16:9

There are some things that we just have to learn the hard way. The disciples of Jesus knew this better than anyone.

Two times in the previous two chapters Jesus had provided a miraculous supply of food for a hungry crowd. Here in chapter 16 Jesus tells them to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees. The disciples freak out because they didn’t bring any bread and they think Jesus is hungry and needs them to supply food.

They still don’t get it.

We could be judgmental, but the truth is that there are things that are just as elementary that you and I still don’t get. And it’s these things that keep us in a state of inertia in our walk with God and the calling He has placed on our lives.

So I thought it’d be good over the next few days to address some of the top signs that indicate that we still don’t get it. Confront the elementary things that are keeping us from launching into a whole new dimension in our relationship with God. Instead of waiting to start tomorrow, I thought I’d give you the first one today:

1. You still feel unworthy to come to God when you fail.
You sin and think there needs to be a grace period before you can pray for forgiveness. You completely blow it and think there’s no way God can use you again. Your days are done. Your destiny disqualified. Might as well sit around and sulk in your self-condemnation.

This really comes down to one thing: you still don’t understand grace.

We often think the grace of God is just a commodity to get us to the point of salvation. But we don’t understand that the same grace that brought us to the point of salvation is also with us in our daily lives. The same power that raised you from the grave of your sin is the same power that raises you from the mistakes of your everyday life.

Proverbs 24:16 says, “The righteous man falls down seven times, but seven times, he rises again.”

That’s not what comes to our minds when most of us think of a righteous person. We think they’re someone who never or rarely falls. But that’s because our idea of righteousness is rooted in self-righteousness. The real righteous person is the one who has been made righteous by Jesus and then can let Jesus pick him back up when up when he falls.

There’s a big difference between falling down (Peter) and falling away (Judas). Grace means God’s got your back. Like Peter, your failure is not final.

Get back up. Go to back to God. No, you’re not worthy. But neither were you worthy when you came to God the first time. It was Jesus’ worthiness that made you worthy then.

What makes you think the terms of acceptance have changed?

In my high school wrestling days, my coaches taught me a technique that seems to work well in every area of life.
Whatever your opponent gives you to work with, use it.

For instance, if your opponent gives you only one vulnerable arm to work with, use it to your advantage. If your opponent aggressively attacks you, use his own momentum to bring him down.

I think you see this same kind of technique in the lives of people like the apostle Paul. And it’s the reason why he was so effective. He used whatever was given to him. He saw the potential in every situation and this allowed him to be adaptable and useful in every situation.

If he was put in jail, he converted the guards.
If he was executed, he saw it as gain.
If they let him live, he’d preach the gospel.
If he was given a thorn in his flesh, he’d use it as an opportunity to let God’s power shine in his weakness.

This made Paul the freest and most powerful man on the planet. And there’s no coincidence that he walked in a level of joy and intimacy with God that most of us fall cosmically short of.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The same technique that worked for him can work for us too.

The circumstances, struggles, and attacks you face are not the ultimate determining factor of the kind of life you live. How you use them is. And there isn’t a single situation in your life that can’t be used for your good and God’s glory.

If you’re facing adversity, use it to develop patience and endurance.
If you’re in a place of financial scarcity, use it to display God’s sufficiency.
If you’ve failed, use it to learn.
If Satan is exploiting one of your past failures, use it to display God’s past faithfulness on the cross.

Whatever you do, refuse to be a victim of what’s thrown at you.
Whatever you’re given in life, use it. And God will use you.

We kicked off a new series this past weekend called Grapes and Giants where we’re looking at four different promises that God has made to every believer in Jesus Christ in the book of Ephesians. For our first week, we focused on the promise of power from Ephesians 1:17-23.

At one point in my sermon I briefly mentioned the difference between power and strength and why so many Christians live powerless lives. I didn’t get to fully flesh it out, so I thought I’d elaborate on it here for everyone.

The tragic truth of our time is that countless Christians are living without strength when their God is full of power. And I firmly believe that one of the main reasons this happens is that we don’t understand the difference between power and strength.

It seems like semantics, but this is actually what separates the ordinary believer from the great men and women of faith in the Bible and throughout history.

Every Christian believes God is powerful. But not every Christian understands that God’s power is not just an abstract proposition. It’s a tangible, practical reality that you have to seize and appropriate to your life.

In other words, God’s power isn’t an automatic trump card.
It’s possible for God to have all the power but for you to live in total weakness.

Think of it like this:
God is still all-powerful when you’re continuing to live in slavery to sin.
God is still all-powerful when you’re letting yourself be a victim of your circumstances.
God is still all-powerful when you’re living a life of mediocrity.
God is still all-powerful when you’re living as if He isn’t.

God already has all the power He’ll ever need to do everything He’ll ever want to do. In the world and in your life. But God’s power is only potential until you convert it into strength by faith and action.

Strength is where you seize God’s power and walk it out.

To leave the slavery of your sin.
To rise above your circumstances.
To break out of the monotony of mediocrity.
To live a life that can only be explained by an infinitely powerful God.

Don’t waste another second praying that God would be powerful. He’s already powerful. And don’t waste another second praying that you would have more power. The power of the resurrection is inside of you. That’s more than enough power for anything you’ll ever face in your life.

You already have what you’re praying for. Take God’s power. Appropriate it. And let it become strength in every area your life.

This past weekend I finished up a two-week series called The Resistance. It was all about the dark side of the Christian life that we have to contend with – the world, the flesh, and the devil.

I covered pretty much everything I wanted to, but there was a particular strategy of the devil that I didn’t have time to get to that I think all Christians really need to be aware of. So I thought I’d post it here as a bonus teaching.

Quick disclaimer.
Although we’ve got to be aware of Satan’s schemes (2 Cor. 2:11), some Christians are obsessed with them to the point where it’s counterproductive. They blame everything on the devil and give him far too much credit and power. Don’t ever become so focused on the enemy that’s against you that you forget about the God who’s for you.

Still, our enemy is smart. And there’s one strategy I’ve seen him use in the lives of countless Christians to hold them back from God’s purposes for them and dislocate their potential:

Not only does he offer resistance, he convinces you that the resistance itself is a sign that you’re not in God’s will.

Your job is tough and demanding. It’s a challenge for your faith. So it must mean you’re not supposed to be there. It must be time to quit.
Marriage has to be easier than this. You must have married the wrong person. So divorce is now acceptable.
You planted a church and it’s not growing at the rate you thought it would. You must have misheard God. Time to go to plan B.

I think we need to alter our framework. Resistance isn’t a sign that you’re out of God’s will. It might actually be a sign that you’ve never been more in it. That the devil is fighting you so hard because you’re so close to what God wants.

Don’t use The Resistance as an excuse to quit. Use it as motivation to push through.

It’s not: “I’m facing a lot of resistance. I guess it isn’t meant to be. I quit.”
But: “I’m facing a lot of resistance. I guess this is really meant to be. I can’t quit”

Now I’m not saying that just because something is hard that it means it’s the will of God. Sometimes it’s absolutely wise to abandon something because it’s just not worth the effort.

Nevertheless, I think we wrongly assume that if God is in something, it has to be easy. That God’s will and plan for you is marked by the path of least resistance. Tell that to Joseph, Moses, David, Nehemiah, Paul, and Jesus.

If you’re encountering resistance right now, don’t back down or sell out. And don’t blame the Resistance for resisting you. Acknowledge it for what it is. Take it as a sign that you’re heading in the right direction because the devil is running at you and not in the same direction as you.

And then push through to what God has for you.

There’s a reason we love movies about people overcoming adversity. A reason why we’ll sit through 100 minutes of depressing scenes for 2 minutes of payoff at the end.

It’s because those depressing scenes make the victory and the payoff at the end that much more meaningful. And possible. Without the adversity, there wouldn’t be much worth watching. Or worth cheering for when the adversity is conquered.

What’s interesting is that what we look for in movies we avoid at all costs in life. The life most of us would prefer is a movie no one would want to see. Including ourselves.

Here’s what I mean.

Have you ever found yourself facing a season of setback and challenge, thinking:
God, can we skip this scene?

If you have, you’re not alone.

Joseph would have said it while spending 13 years in slavery and prison.
The apostles would have said it when they were being persecuted for the gospel.
Even Jesus said it before the cross when He was in the garden of Gethsemane.

So it’s understandable to have this feeling. Who wants to go through hell? Who wants to go through adversity? It’s ok to watch on a screen. But who wants to go through it in their own lives?

Yet what we have to realize is that it’s these very moments that make the payoff we’re waiting for worth it. It’s these scenes that build character. That setup for the big breakthrough and climax.

It’s the scenes that we all want to skip that produce the endings we all want to experience.

It was Joseph’s time in slavery and prison that put him in a position to save his family and an entire nation.
It was the very persecution that the apostles would have wanted to skip that ended up being the catalyst for the rapid spread of the gospel.
It was the cross of Jesus that provided salvation for all who would believe.

Nothing of great worth comes at a low cost. The hardest scenes of your life are the necessary stepping stones to the greatest breakthroughs and victories of your life.

I know that doesn’t make them easy. I know you’d still like to skip them. But you can’t.

And it’s the scenes that you’d prefer to skip that God is using to orchestrate an ending you wouldn’t want to miss.

One of the biggest obstacles for many people in worship comes when it’s time to sing a song or a line they don’t fully mean or haven’t fully lived up to.

Lines that declare that we’re ready to sacrifice everything, when giving 10% of our income feels like a harder sacrifice to make than martyrdom.
Songs about God’s glory being our greatest passion, when it’s usually our greatest afterthought.

Some choose not to sing these lines or songs at all. They wouldn’t dare sing something they don’t mean or live. Others sing them, but feel like they’re being hypocritical.

Both of these groups miss an essential truth of worship:
Worship isn’t an assessment of my performance but a statement of my intention.

If I had to completely mean and live every word every time I sang it, I would never sing. Nobody would. Even the men who wrote the Psalms.

By still singing, we’re not being hypocritical. We’re training our flesh to submit to our spirit. We’re stating our intentions. We’re saying, “Make this true, Lord. I want my life to catch up to the truth I’m singing.”

I want your glory to be my greatest passion.
I want to be willing to sacrifice everything for you.

It’d only be hypocritical if we had no intention of living up to these declarations.

And consider this: even if you had your act completely together, you’d still be just as unworthy to sing a single syllable. But God has commanded you to worship anyways. And that’s because your performance and feelings aren’t the admission price for true worship. Jesus’ blood is.

So continue to sing. Continue to worship. Let the discrepancy between the words you’re singing and the life you’re living be an engine for repentance. Not a cause for shame or silence.

When you’re flying through airports, you often have to fly through one city to get to another city. They’re called hubs. Transfer points to get passengers to their intended destination.

So if you want to get to Philly, sometimes you have to go to Atlanta. Even if Atlanta is in the exact opposite direction from Philly and it makes no sense to go there first. It sounds weird and counterintuitive, but it’s just the way it works.

The same is true with God’s will.

I think most people assume that when God reveals to you what He wants you to do with your life, like a genie He quickly and immediately transports you to it. Yet that’s rarely the case. There are very few non-stop flights to God’s will.

I was 16 when I received a vision from God to one day pastor a church. It wasn’t until ten years later that we planted Elevation. In-between those two points were multiple hubs, most of which I would never have scripted out as transfer points to my intended destination. But each was absolutely essential.

For example, I never thought I’d come to plant Elevation by going to Shelby, NC. Don’t feel bad, most people have never heard of it either. But if I hadn’t gone to Shelby, I wouldn’t have met many of the key leaders that got Elevation off the ground and have been so instrumental to its success.

Or even before that, I never thought I’d come to pastor Elevation by going to Tigerville, SC for college. But if I hadn’t gone to Tigerville, I never would have met Holly. And without her, Elevation wouldn’t exist.

I’ve concluded that you can’t script out what God wants to do through your life. You just have to follow it step by step. Everybody wants the ten-year plan. Everybody wants to know the full alphabet of God’s plan for them.

But we don’t like living in each letter.
We love A and B. And we love Y and Z.
But we hate L, M, N, O, P.

We hate the hubs that get us from the place where we first got a hint at God’s will for our lives to the place where it actually comes to fruition. Yet those are some of the most important places we’ll ever go. It’s there that God is preparing us for what He has for us. What we see as an unnecessary detour, God sees as a necessary transfer point to get us to our final destination.

God knows how to get you to where He wants you. Even if it doesn’t seem like the most direct route that you’d prefer. And He’s not just wasting your time or playing games with you. There’s a purpose to every hub He takes you to. To the hub you may be in right now.

That includes the school you can’t wait to graduate from.
The relationship you thought would lead to marriage, but then didn’t.
The city you’re living in that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.
The job you know you don’t want to be at forever, but where you feel stuck at for now.

Don’t be afraid to go to Atlanta to go to Philly.
God’s going to get you to Philly. And He’s got something for you in Atlanta in the meantime.

We don’t pray enough.
Most Christians would readily admit this. 
But I don’t mean it in the way most Christians probably think about it.

Usually, we mean this in terms of the length of our prayers. I need to pray ten minutes instead of three. Twenty minutes instead of ten.
Or the frequency of our prayers. I need to pray more than once a day. More than three times a week. And so on.

I mean it in terms of the breadth of our prayers. Their scope. Their size.

Christians do need to pray longer and more frequently. But when we’re praying, most of us still aren’t praying enough because we’re content with asking for things that could just as likely happen due to natural explanations, increased effort or a swing of good luck.

A good day. A bonus. Slightly increased attendance at church.

That’s not enough. It’s not enough when we’re getting to have face time with the Creator of the universe. It’s not enough when you consider Ephesians 3:20:
Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.

That’s an astonishing promise. It describes a big God. But most forget the context of the promise and don’t see that it coincides with a big prayer:
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge (17b-19b).

That’s a logical impossibility. The Ephesians probably freaked out when they read it. Paul maybe even freaked out when he prayed it. You can’t know the unknowable. While eloquent, it seems like that prayer is a waste of time.

But that’s only if you’re dealing with a God whose abilities are measurable. Limited. Paul knew otherwise.

One of the most glaring discrepancies in the Christian faith today is between the size of our God and the size of our prayers. I think God wants us to pray in such a way that we have to immediately remind ourselves of God’s infinite greatness so that we don’t freak out. I think God wants us to push the limits of what we can ask or imagine.

The wildest dreams you can conceive don’t even compare to the endless power of God. Yes, pray longer. Yes, pray more frequently. But what does it matter if you pray for five minutes or ten. Once a day or twice a day.

If you’re settling for scraps of God’s power and provision.

Few if any of you will ever know what it feels like to be Chuck Close.
A lot of you might not even know who he is.
But all of us have something monumentally important to learn from him.

Chuck Close is one of the greatest portrait artists of our time. If you glanced at his work, you would think you were simply looking at a photograph. In reality, you’re looking at paint. Sometimes pencil. Other times, thread. That’s just how brilliant he is.

But if you knew his backstory, you wouldn’t think it would be possible.

Close can’t remember a single face that he meets. He suffers from prosopagnosia, a condition that leaves him unable to recognize faces. He can create a masterpiece with your face, but he can’t remember it.

You would think that for a person in Close’s situation, creating portraits would be the last thing he’d be doing. After all, faces are his greatest weakness. But it’s just the opposite. It motivates him, even to the point of him saying, “everything in my art is driven by my disability.”

And that’s what makes his work that much more brilliant. It shouldn’t be coming out of him. But it is. His greatest weakness has become the source of his greatest strength. It’s provided a platform where his greatness can be amplified.

Few if any of us will ever have a condition like Close’s.
But we all deal with weakness in one shape or form.

Some of you feel completely inadequate for what God has called you to do.
Some of you feel like your marriage has about a week left before it falls apart.
Some of you have lost your job and you don’t see how you’ll make it.
Some of you are battling cancer and you don’t know how much longer you can fight.

For every person, there is a place in their life where weakness exists. And it’s for that very reason that in every person, a platform exists. An opportunity exists. An opportunity to amplify the greatness of God in a way that your strength alone will never be able to.

Your greatest weakness may actually be God’s greatest platform for showing His power and glory in your life.

Through saving your marriage when all seems lost.
Through using your cancer to shine a spotlight on His sufficiency.

In 2 Corinthians 12:9, Jesus tells us, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

God’s power is the perfect counterpart to your weakness. It’s more than enough for you and it’s completely available to you. God isn’t scouring the universe looking for a perfect person through whom He can display His power and glory. He’s looking for the perfect person. And the perfect person is a person whose weakness provides God and His power with an opportunity to make their life unexplainable.

No matter what you’re going through, no matter how weak you feel right now, there’s no reason that can’t be you.

I have one piece of advice for you as we start out this New Year:
Don’t put Jesus first this year.

Yes, you read that correctly. Before you label me a heretic, let me explain.

I imagine that many of you are going through a similar process as me right now of setting and resetting your priorities. Personally, I love this time of year. I’m a very goal-oriented individual and I’ve found that reprioritizing and recalibrating your life is an indispensable activity if you really want to actualize your potential.

And here’s what it usually looks like. We start by putting Jesus at the top. Then family. Then maybe career. And so on. So our priorities look something like this:

1. Jesus/God
2. Family
3. Career

Looks good. However I’ve found that this isn’t very effective when you get down to the grind of everyday life. For example, what does it even mean to put Jesus before my family? Do I ignore my family to spend more time with Jesus? Or with your career, do you stop working to put Jesus first?

The essential problem with this approach is that it segregates the different priorities of life. You end up removing Jesus from where you spend the majority of your time and putting Him on an island by Himself. The biggest island maybe, but an island nonetheless.

I don’t think this is the way it was ever supposed to work. Colossians 1:15-20 repeatedly tells us that Jesus is first before and over everything. But it also says that all things were created through and for Him. That in Him all things hold together. That the goal of the cross was to reconcile all things to Himself.

So Jesus is first. He is first in order. He is first in importance. But He is so because He is the center of everything.

That’s what He should be in your life. And consequently, the thing that is at the center of your life is the thing that is ultimately first in your life.

This year, instead of worrying about putting Jesus first in your life, what if you concentrated on making Him the center of every area of your life? Not just the top priority in front of every other priority, but the top priority in every priority?

Not Jesus, then my family. But Jesus in my family.
Not Jesus, then my career. But Jesus in my career.

We’d probably be a lot more successful in actually keeping Jesus at the top spot on our list. And we’d be much more likely to do an exponentially greater job at accomplishing our other goals and maintaining our priorities.

(For some practical tips on how to put Jesus in the center of your life, check out the Elevation Sermon Archive next Monday for our New Year’s sermon.)

This past weekend I delivered a teaching on gratitude that I originally gave to my staff right before Thanksgiving.

And it took off. God is at work in every sermon you preach, but He decided to blow on this one in a special way. So I wanted to relay the message to anyone who wasn’t able to be there or didn’t capture my main points in their notes.

Choose to live this way. It will revolutionize your life. There are few things more important to God than gratitude. It’s the highest level of living because it’s where you realize everything you have is by the grace of God. It’s the eternal state of Heaven, and it’s something we can experience here and now.

Here are the five observations on gratitude that I shared:

1. Gratitude is never invisible or silent.
There is no such thing as silent gratitude. If you’re really grateful for something, you’ll say it and show it. Unexpressed gratitude is a lost opportunity to give God praise.

2. Gratitude sustains joy and blessing.
In the same way that you can relive an offense through bitterness, you can relive a blessing of God through gratitude. It is possible to relive the joy of yesterday’s gifts with today’s thankfulness.

3. Gratitude begins where my sense of entitlement ends.
To keep a high sense of gratitude, you must keep a low sense of entitlement. You can’t be grateful for something you feel entitled to. And the truth is, you’re not entitled to anything.

You woke up this morning. Someone else didn’t. They thought they would, but they didn’t.
You received a standard Christmas bonus. Someone else is still looking for a job.

If that wasn’t enough, for the Christian, anything short of hell is God’s miraculous, overwhelming, and sufficient grace. We’re not entitled to salvation. It’s a gracious gift that demands a grateful response.

4. Grateful people can find a blessing, enlarge a blessing, or create a blessing in almost any situation.
The opposite of this point is that negative people can find a burden, enlarge a burden, or create a burden in almost any situation. It might sound crass, but some people are crap factories. It doesn’t matter what you put in them, it just comes out crap. They’ll always find a reason to complain. They’ll always find the worst in every situation.

But then for other people, they find crap, put a seed in it, and let it grow.
Who do you think possesses more joy?

Your situation doesn’t need to improve for your gratitude to increase. Gratitude sees the best and the potential in every situation.

5. Gratitude increases favor and creates opportunity.
Gratitude will make you magnetic for miracles. Joseph preserved his gratitude even after unjustly spending over a decade in slavery and prison. And God used him to save a nation and preserve His people.

If you want the favor of God to flow through your life, keep a grateful heart.

(If you weren’t there to see it, you can always view the current week’s sermon at the Elevation Experience.)

I was famous in China once. Well, not famous. But I was respected and admired.

When I was in college, I went with a mission team to China. We served hard during the day, but at night we would occasionally go to Chinese dance clubs just to experience the culture.

For some reason, everyone there thought we were amazing dancers. Mainly because we were American and the music was so old. In reality, we were horrible. And we knew it. We were performing old school dance moves that probably would have gotten us kicked out of American dance clubs. Yet the people in China thought we were the best thing they had ever seen.

But that’s just because they had nothing to compare us to. If they had seen us next to real dancers, they would have realized we were a joke.

It goes to show you that when your standard of comparison is off, anyone can look like a superstar. And therefore anyone can develop pride.

It can happen on a Chinese dance floor. Or it can happen when you see yourself not committing awful sins like those other people do. When you don’t beat your kids like those other people do. When you don’t cheat on your spouse like those other people do. When you don’t…

That’s great. But it shouldn’t make you proud because they’re not your standard.

Jesus is. And if we ever really saw ourselves in comparison to Christ, we’d be humbled.

The truth is one day we will be. One day we will see our standard face to face. In that moment, everybody will be in the same position: on their knees and on their faces. And no one will be looking to their side to see how they compare to the people around them.

When Jesus returns, even the greatest men and women of our generation will not have their heads lifted one inch higher off the ground than any other person. In fact they’ll be trying to get lower, digging holes in the ground in which they can bury their faces even lower before Jesus.

That’s why they’re the greatest men and women of our generation. They know that compared to Jesus, their best day is pitiful. Their best efforts futile. Their righteousness, dirty rags.

Without grace, they’d be nothing.
Without grace, we’d all be nothing.

Which makes grace that brilliant and that powerful. It simultaneously humbles us and lifts us up. It reminds us that before Jesus, we’re nothing yet we have everything we need to rise above nothing. Without grace, we pale in comparison to the Standard. With grace, the Standard dwells within us and covers our failures to live up to Him.

Don’t let the trap of comparison warp your perspective. Where pride exists, a true understanding of grace can’t.

Compare yourself to the right standard.
Stay humble.
Thank God that when He sees you, He sees Jesus in you.

Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph.
Luke 3:23

Brilliant. Luke is simply brilliant. What else can you say for a person who is able to say in four words what many couldn’t say in 10,000? And in a genealogy no less. You know, that part of the gospels that you skip when you come to it.

Luke is just getting started with Jesus’ lineage and of course, he begins with Joseph. But apparently there had been a misunderstanding. People in his day had come to the conclusion that Jesus was Joseph’s son. So Luke slips in a phrase to indicate that people have this low mentality of Jesus: so it was thought.

He was just the son of Joseph. Just another carpenter from Nazareth. Just another link in the long chain of human history.

So it was thought.

But Jesus wasn’t what they thought He was. He was more than that.
He wasn’t just the son of Joseph. He was the Son of God.
That’s a huge miscalculation. But Luke just continues on with his gospel as if nothing has changed.

And it’s because nothing has changed.

History is full of people who have misinterpreted and underestimated Jesus. We do it to this day. And we will be doing it to the end of time.

He was just a good man. Just a myth. Just a magic worker. Just a revolutionary. Just a man who died in his early 30s. He was just the son of Joseph.

So it was thought.

The reality is that who Jesus really is can’t be changed or altered by human opinion. While the opinions of men have come and gone, Jesus still sits on His throne. Unscathed. Unchanged. Undiminished.

He’s still the Alpha and Omega.
He’s still the Author of life.
He’s still the Lord over all Creation.
He’s still the risen Savior of the world.
He’s still the image of the invisible God.
He’s still the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords.
He’s still the hope of glory.
He’s still the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
He’s still Jesus, the Son of God.

And not one low opinion of Jesus will ever change these truths. The most ferocious opponents of Jesus can’t change a single thing about Him. Those who casually dismiss Him haven’t tarnished His character or nature in the slightest degree.

Every person who has ever underestimated Jesus has gone into the grave. Meanwhile Jesus is still risen from the grave. Not one false opinion has moved Him one inch down from His throne. Not one accurate one has moved Him any higher because He is already the Highest.

People today think Jesus is weak.
People today think Jesus is just one way of many.
People today think Jesus is irrelevant.
People today think Jesus is…

In 2000 years the truth will be the exact same as it is today.

So it was thought.

I sometimes fear that people come to hear me preach for the completely wrong reason.

People should never come to hear me or any other preacher speak because they assume that we’re better than them. That somehow by listening to us preach they can learn how to be like us.

I’m not a guru.

Believe it or not, there are areas of my life where the people listening to me are doing way better than me. If anything, I should be imitating them. I’m not standing up there because I’m the paragon of every imaginable virtue.

There are people who pray better than me. Who love their kids in a better way than me. Who are more attentive to their wives. Who are better at managing their time.

Sometimes when I’m preaching I feel like I’m unworthy. How can I be preaching to people when they are better than me at these things?

But that is not the qualification for preaching. The qualification is that I’m called.

The reason I’m preaching isn’t because I’m a better man than the people out there. It’s because God has given me the charge and the mandate to point us all to the One who is perfect. And He is better than all of us.

Jesus is perfect.
He lived the perfect life none of us could live.
Died the death all of us should have died.
Conquered death so that we all could live.
And He has now given each us His Spirit who enables us to be like Him.

Not the one proclaiming Him.

Jesus makes us perfect.
He has already made us perfect before God because of His death and resurrection.
He will present us perfect before God at the end.
And in the meantime He is helping us catch up to the perfection that is already ours by giving us the grace to follow His example.

Don’t worry about trying to be like me or any other pastor you listen to. We’re not better than you.

But we can point you to the One who is. And He has the power to make you what you should be.

A common expression that you’ve probably heard in times of opposition or difficulty is “the battle is not yours. It’s the Lord’s.”

It sounds great. It’s encouraging. Reassuring. Empowering.

But it isn’t always true. The battle isn’t always the Lord’s. Not because He is incapable. Or unloving. But because sometimes we’re fighting battles He doesn’t intend for us to fight.

In context of the passage this expression comes from (2 Chronicles 20), the Israelites are facing an unprovoked attack by their enemies and God intends to rescue them. In this case, it is definitely the Lord’s battle. What matters is His strength. Not theirs. His might to face their opposition. Not their inability to. And so Israel can have the confidence that comes from God having their back.

But there are other places in the Bible where God does not fight for Israel. Where they are defeated. Crushed and humiliated even. Sometimes it was because of their unrepentant sin. But other times it was because the battle was really of their own initiative and they tried to sanctify it on the backend with God’s approval.

Not every battle we face is God’s to fight. There are times in our lives and ministries where we are fighting our own battles. It’s about our ego. Our agenda. Our purposes. Our glory.

Maybe it’s a conflict at work that if you were honest, you have just as much responsibility for creating as your opposition.
Or marriage difficulties that you could claim equal blame in.
Or a ministry initiative that found its origin more in your own desire and ambitions than in God’s will.

In these moments, we can’t have the confidence that God will fight for us.We can’t just depend on the Lord’s strength.

Make sure that whatever battle you’re facing right now is something God intends for you to be in. Otherwise your expectation that God is going to fight for you is ultimately going to lead frustration when you find yourself still fighting in your own strength.

God isn’t interested in prolonging battles He wants no part in.

I used to wish I had a more dramatic testimony. I was sixteen when I gave my life to Christ. Although it was the most important moment of my life, it wasn’t something most people would consider dramatic.

Before then, I had been a pretty likable, relatively well-behaved kid. And since then I have never gone through a time of intense rebellion. I embraced my salvation. Became passionate for telling other people about Christ. And embraced His vision for my life.

That doesn’t make for the classic “road to Damascus, I used to use drugs, sleep around, and spent time in prison” kind of testimony that calls for standing ovations and leaves people in tears.

I’m sorry. But that’s not my story.

And it’s now something I praise God for. I’ve learned that while some Christian conversion stories may be more spectacular than others, that doesn’t make them any more significant. Sometimes we think the most impactful testimonies in the Christian life are those of people who praise God for the things He delivered them from. Sexual relationships. Addictions. Etc.

But perhaps the people who should praise God the most are the people who can praise Him for what He has kept them from. Perhaps these people should begin their testimonies by saying, “God saved me from pre-marital sex, drugs, alcohol, and a life of sin-when I was eight and gave my life to Christ.”

I wonder if the problem is that when someone is rescued from the edge of doom, we think it is because of the grace and power of God. But when someone never approaches it, it’s because of their own diligence and discipline.

This viewpoint completely misses key aspects of sin, grace, and God’s glory. God’s grace doesn’t just rescue you from a life engrossed in sin. It also keeps you from it. And God doesn’t just receive glory when He has to completely remake a ruined life. He’s just as glorified when someone commits themselves to purity and a holy life, and by God’s grace sticks to it.

Jude 1:24-25 gives us one of the most eloquent, powerful prayers of praise in all of Scripture. And look at what the driving force is: “To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy- to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.”

If what I have been describing is your story, the next time you feel like you don’t have anything to praise God for, imagine what you would be addicted to and what you would have gone through if He had not kept you from falling.

Let’s not allow the most passionate praisers to only be the ones who have received God’s abundant grace because of their experiences. Let’s start learning to praise God for the parts of our testimony that we have never had to experience because of His grace.

Yesterday I began a four-week series on Romans 8 called “Christ Alone.” This is what many consider to be the most important chapter in what might be the most important book in the Bible.

I didn’t make it past the first verse.

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

I spent an entire week on this one verse because I think there might not be a more important topic for Christians than condemnation. And I’m not just talking about our status with God. Almost every Christian believes that one day there will be no condemnation for us because of the sacrifice of Jesus. But few live in light of the truth that there is no condemnation for us now because of the sacrifice of Jesus.

In Christ you are free. Now.
In Christ you are holy. Now.
In Christ you are pure. Now.

I firmly believe that more Christians are derailed by condemnation than by loose living. And I think the root of the problem lies in the fact that we allow ourselves to be deceived by the devil’s lies and half-truths regarding condemnation.

So part of what I wanted to do yesterday was present truths designed to expose condemnation for what it is and what it does to us. I came up with 17. Like a few weeks ago with the topic of forgiveness, there was no way I could get to everything I wanted to. So I promised everyone that I would give all 17 here to help you as you fight the temptation to condemn yourself for something that Christ has already covered.

So if you’re tempted at all this week to give in to the condemnation that Christ has already received on the cross for you, remember this:

-Condemnation operates through the power of suggestion.
-Condemnation is counterfeit conviction.
-Condemnation highlights the need for change. But paralyzes your potential to do it.
-Condemnation tries to turn a momentary lapse into a permanent condition.
-Condemnation is God’s correction without God’s kindness. And this is not God’s way. (Rom. 2:4)
-Condemnation is over-identification with what you’ve done and disassociation from who you are in Christ.
-Condemnation is the master of the half-truth.
-Confrontation builds you up, calls you higher. Condemnation beats you down.
-Condemnation loves comparison and competition.
-Condemnation leads to arrested development.
-Condemnation can be a copout because it keeps you locked-in to lowered expectations.
-Condemnation likes to pull out footage from the home video archives.
-Condemnation operates through selective memory.
-Condemnation only operates in the shadows. It tries to make you believe that the shadow of your real self is your real self.
-Condemnation is the operating system that constantly crashes.
-If condemnation can’t keep you in the past, it will convince you to defer to the future.
-Condemnation’s theme song is, “Don’t expect too much from yourself.”
-Romans 8:1 says that there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. Not there will one day be no condemnation.

(If you weren’t there to hear it, we’ll have the whole sermon up later today.)

We live in a culture that places feelings at the apex of our motivation for everything we do. If you feel like doing something, go for it with everything you’ve got. On the flipside, if you don’t feel like it, why do it at all? It’s pointless. Inauthentic.

This mindset holds tremendous consequences for our approach to worship. If we get into a worship experience on the weekend and we don’t feel like worshiping, it can be easy to clock out spiritually and offer God a few scraps of praise. Or simply opt out until next week when we’ll hopefully be in a better mood and we can offer something that’s a little more real.

This reflects a massive misunderstanding of worship and what’s required for it to be authentic and acceptable to God-and it’s not our feelings.

Hebrews 13:15 gives us the real answer: “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise.”

Your offering filtered through your feelings might be lacking, but your offering filtered through Jesus’ sacrifice will never be. Feeling is not the admission price for worship. Jesus’ blood is.

Don’t let the devil rob you of your praise by talking you into the lie that a certain feeling must precede worship. Jesus has been faithful to offer the worship you’ll never be able to. So be faithful and offer the worship he asks of you through Him. Even if you’re not feeling it.

Put your feelings in their place and make them have to catch up to your faithfulness.

Outside of money, I think the most difficult thing to trust God with is our future. More and more I’m coming to see that the root issue isn’t necessarily control. It’s perception. There is a significant discrepancy between our perception of our future and God’s perception of the future.

For us, our future isn’t really our future. Our future is our perceived future. An imagined future. A possibility.

For God, the future isn’t really the future either. But that’s because He is not in time so the future is right now. Present. Happening.

It’s hard for us to get on the same page with God about our future because the future we’re concerned about might not be the future God is living in. Or it is the future God is already living in and therefore has no anxiety over because He’s simultaneously there and every step that it takes to get there.

It’s interesting that when people got a glimpse of heaven in the Bible, it was usually in circumstances where the future was uncertain. Isaiah was dealing with the death of an effective and efficient king. The Christians in John’s day were dealing with persecution and the possibility of being killed for their faith. They had reason to worry. To be concerned. To wonder if God could be trusted with their futures.

But isn’t it telling that in all of these scenes, God is never panicking. Never anxious. Never trying to plot the best course for the future based on His best estimation of what’s going to happen. That’s because He doesn’t have to deal with the present uncertainty that comes with future possibilities. God knows where things are going because He’s already where they’re going.

The reason we trust God with our future is because He’s the only one who has ever experienced it. As limited beings, we have to let go of a future that might be for a future that is. A future where God is already present and therefore knows how to best prepare us for it and guide us to it.

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.

Acts 14:17: “Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.”

A phrase I occasionally hear when I pray with other people is, “God, we thank You not for what You’ve done for us, but for who You are.”

I understand the heart behind that. I think what they’re trying to say is that even if God hadn’t decided to do certain things for them, they would still love Him and He would still be worthy of their praise. Our thankfulness isn’t conditional upon God doing what we think He should do when we think He should do it. I get that. And even agree with it.

At the same time, I don’t think it’s really possible to separate God’s nature from God’s actions. It’s like trying to separate wet from water. We would not know who God is without the evidence of what He’s done.

The God of the Bible is not an abstract God we can arrive at by mere theoretical speculation. This is a God who acts. A God who has shown up and shown Himself to be certain things.

We don’t call God the Provider because He logically has to be that. We call Him it because in the Bible, throughout history, and in our own lives, God has shown Himself to be so by providing for his people over and over again. Tangibly. Specifically.

The same is true with God being a savior, healer, sustainer, and creator. With Him being gracious, loving, mighty, and steadfast. These aren’t descriptions pulled out of the air. They are the one-word summations of God’s countless concrete demonstrations of His character.

When you’re praying today, don’t settle for only thanking God for who He is. Let’s thank Him by naming examples of how He has expressed His nature in our lives. God has shown up for us. Tangibly. Specifically. Let’s thank Him. Tangibly. Specifically.

Exodus 4:10-14

Moses said to the LORD, “O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”

The LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

But Moses said, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.”

Then the LORD’s anger burned against Moses.

There’s a saying that goes, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” Well apparently if you want to make God mad, tell him your limitations.

God had approached Moses with an assignment that was over his head. The Lord was going to take on the leader of the most powerful nation in the world at that time in order to free His people from slavery-and Moses was going to be his representative.

Moses’ initial response seemed to indicate a genuine humility: Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt (3:11)?

God simply responds with, “I will be with you.” No hint of anger whatsoever.

Moses continues to ask questions, all of them pretty legitimate. And every time God responds by giving him a game plan and telling him he’s got it covered. Once again, no anger.

But then Moses oversteps his bounds. He implies that his poor communication skills will undercut God’s intention to use him to speak on His behalf. We might be tempted to think that Moses is once again displaying humility.

In fact it’s just the opposite. It’s pride.

Moses’ problem isn’t that he’s too humble and doesn’t believe in himself. It’s that he’s prideful and thinks God’s capability rises and falls with his own inability.

We often think pride means overconfidence in our own abilities. Or possibly attributing the source of those abilities to ourselves rather than God. But there is another side to pride that is often overlooked. It can also mean that you believe your limitations are an unstoppable obstacle to God’s power and purposes in your life.

There’s nothing quite so prideful as thinking that you have the ability to single-handedly thwart what God wants to do in and through you.

This time God isn’t patient or nice to Moses. He doesn’t respond with a “you just need to believe in yourself, you’re better than you think you know,” motivational talk. He actually turns angry because Moses’ perspective is monumentally insulting to God. A God with limitless power and ability has no desire or time to hear about the limitations of the people he wants to use.

True humility doesn’t start with having an accurate view of ourselves. It starts with having an accurate view of God. And an accurate view of God will both shrink us down to size but also make us realize that God is big enough to use anybody of any size.

This includes you.

Maybe you think you’re doomed to be a miserable parent because you had miserable parents. Maybe you think your lack of an education will keep you from making a significant impact for God’s Kingdom. Maybe you believe your friend’s response to Jesus is based solely on the excellence of your gospel presentation. Maybe…

You’re not that big. God knew your limitations long before you were ever even aware of them. Don’t stop selling yourself short. Stop selling God short. He used a stuttering, murdering, shepherd to set a whole nation free.

Imagine what He could do with you.

A common complaint I hear from pastors is that the problem with Christians today is they lack depth in God’s word. From my own experience, this is certainly true of some people. But when I look at the landscape of American Christianity, I don’t think depth is really our problem. From blogs, to podcasts, to seemingly endless Bible study resources, we have more access to the Bible and excellent teaching than any other generation in history.

The greatest problem of American Christians when it comes to the Bible is not that we are not deep in God’s Word. The problem is that we are not active in God’s Word. We have a lot more revelation than our current level of active application. And revelation without application leads to stagnation.

Hebrews 4:12 tells us that the Word of God is “living and active.” The Bible was never meant to simply be a source of passive theological epiphanies that we gain as we delve deeper into it. It was meant to be a force that penetrates and delves deep into us and activates action.

I wonder if what we need is to gain a true understanding of what “depth” actually means. Deep teaching and preaching is not when I give my people insights they have never heard of before that will never be seen again when they disappear into the vacuum of their minds or a drawer that holds all of their sermon notes. Deep teaching is teaching that enables, equips, and empowers people to live in light of the deep truths they are encountering.

The point of the study of the Bible is not to learn things you’ve never heard of before but to begin living in a way nobody has seen before. And this can only be the result of active engagement with God’s Word, not merely increased depth in God’s Word.

I wonder why we tend to pit certain things against each other that are supposed to go hand in hand?

For example, being Spirit-led isn’t antithetical to being orderly.
Yet from time to time I’ll hear someone say something along the lines of:
“We need to throw out all of our church programs and strategies and just let the Spirit have His way-”
I understand the sentiment. I agree that we need to stay open to the spontaneity of God. But to draw a dividing line between human planning and the initiative of the Spirit is to discount the possibility that the Spirit can work through our strategies just as well as He can work in spite of them.

Another dangerous dichotomy is our frequent separation of prayer and action. Don’t get me wrong, we all need to rely a lot more on God and less on self effort in our day to day lives. But that doesn’t warrant the divorce of prayer and action. Doesn’t God often call us to action in direct response to our prayers? Aren’t the two supposed to work in tandem? Aren’t they as inseparable as wet and water? Then why do we approach them like two opposite extremes? Why do we insist on stopping to pray? Shouldn’t prayer and action flow naturally from one another? Isn’t this the pattern of Scripture?

I feel the same way about faith and works, as well as grace and justice.
They’re two sides of the same coin.

It would simultaneously simplify and enhance our understanding of God’s ways if we’d drop our false dichotomies. We have to embrace the tensions that the vast character of Christ are guaranteed to create.

I really enjoyed Donald Miller’s most recent book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. It’s all about living a good story.

Here’s one of the most salient points in the book: in order for a story to be interesting, or worthwhile, the main character has to be thrown into the middle of a conflict. These are the parts of our life stories that we’d probably prefer to skip. But they’re also the elements that create significant change and make life meaningful.

I think one of the reasons the whole comparison between storytelling and real life resonated with me is that I consider myself a master storyteller. Not because I’m a preacher and a writer. But because I’m a dad. And when you’re trying to be the best dad ever to preschool boys, you’d better be able to spin a good story.

My boys love my stories. I know just how to get ‘em hooked. I usually start pretty slow, introducing the main character. Typically, he’s a crocodile, pirate, shark, dinosaur, or a little boy named Elijah or Graham. I share some details about said character-nothing too exciting yet-just the basic pertinent stuff-and I wait until it looks like the boys are getting a little fidgety and bored.

Then I hit ‘em with the line that is guaranteed to snap their hyperactive minds back into focus every single time.

“And then, something terrible happened-”

Now I’ve got their attention. The part of the plot that follows is sure to be spellbinding. The dinosaur falls into the chocolate lake of fire and starts to drown. The pirate gets attacked by an alien as big as the moon with 3 heads and teeth made of glass and metal and claws made of tigers.

Etc.

For the rest of the story, the boys are glued. Their eyes are wide, their jaws are dropped, and they can’t get enough.

I actually have to moderate myself. I’ve discovered that the content can quickly drift into the Daddy that’s way too scary realm. I learned this the hard way.

Now, in Daddy’s stories, the hero always wins. I know that’s not always the way it goes in real life. But I’m trying to entertain a four year old and a two year old-not give them nightmares and break their hearts by exposing them to the harsh truths of the real world.

Still, isn’t it interesting that-instinctively-that line: “And then something terrible happened-” is the line that holds our attention-even before we’re 5 years old?

It’s not just the line that makes a good bedtime story. It’s the line that turns our lives into a platform for God to be the hero, save the day, and glorify himself through us.

You’ll probably never look forward to the parts of your life when something terrible happens. I’m not saying that you should.

But when something terrible does happen-and it will-at least you’ll have a story worth telling.

And if you’ll let Jesus finish what He started, it’s going to be a good one.

When God really starts blessing you, it’s easy to get slack. It’s the most natural thing in the world to rest on your laurels.

Spiritual momentum is about the most invaluable commodity God could ever bless you with. But so often we undervalue or misappropriate it.

When you get a surge of blessing in your church, business, family, or personal life, your first instinct might be to chill for a little while-take it easy-kick back-or protect the blessing by playing it safe.

Here’s an alternative way to approach it:

When you buy a financial stock, you have the option to enroll in the company’s dividend reinvestment plan. That means that the earnings you get from the stock will automatically be used to purchase more of the stock.

What if we got in the habit of automatically reinvesting the dividends of every blessing God gives us? Instead of sitting back and getting presumptuous, how about getting proactive about reinvesting every blessing back into the Kingdom of God?

And the thing is, you can apply this mentality to financial blessing, relational blessing, career blessing, corporate blessing, individual blessing-it works just about anywhere.

The compound interest will be remarkable-

“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing-”
Genesis 12:2

Paul wanted to appear before the crowd, but the disciples would not let him.
Acts 19:30

There was an uproar in the city, and a mob was forming at the theater.
Paul really wanted to get in on the action. He was determined to stand before the people and defend the Gospel. His passion was sincere, and his heart was in the right place.

But the disciples would not let him do it. They knew it wasn’t in his best interest. It would endanger his life. It was short sighted, reckless, and unwise.

So they stood in his way. They made him do what he needed to do instead of letting him do what he wanted to do.

Do you have anyone in your life who won’t let you go where you shouldn’t go, and do what you shouldn’t do?

Are you surrounded by people who love you enough to stand in your way when you’re about to do something stupid?

I call these the buffer people.
They’re true friends-
The ones who talk you down from the ledge, and protect you from your worst enemy- yourself.

If you don’t have ‘em, you’d better find ‘em.
And if you do, thank God for ‘em.

(This post is dedicated to all the people who would not let me say and do some stupid things over the years. You know who you are.)

I was a huge Nirvana fan in the early nineties. I may or may not still have half the Nevermind album on my workout playlist. Don’t judge me.

I was just a teenager when Kurt Cobain committed suicide, and when I heard about it, I was devastated. Seems silly now, I know. But most of you can relate to having a basketball hero, or a baseball hero, or a movie star hero, or whatever. My teenage idol just happened to be a rock star. Looking back, I guess I could have picked a much healthier and nobler role model.

I got so obsessed with Cobain’s music that I started reading every book I could get my hands on about him. It was pretty much the same information in every book, but I couldn’t get enough. I was fascinated by anything I could learn about what made Kurt Cobain- in my middle school opinion- such a brilliant songwriter and artist.

One of his issues that really intrigued me was his stomach condition. Apparently he had this agonizing, chronic pain in his stomach that was absolutely debilitating for him. It made him unable to eat, rest, and function like a normal person. He claimed it was the reason for his heroin addiction. He didn’t do it because he enjoyed it, but because he was self-medicating. Not sure about all that, buddy-but anyway-

The doctors never could figure out exactly what was wrong with his stomach. No one was able to specifically locate the source of the pain.
But a lot of people believe that the same condition that caused him so much agony caused him to sing the way he did. It was precisely because he hurt so badly in his stomach that he sang so uniquely- with so much angst. This angst is what caused his voice to resonate with so many people. He sang from the place of his pain- the place where it hurt the most. And millions of people identified deeply with his voice, because it was so raw and laced with emotion.

I’m not sure how that all works out medically. But theologically, I think it’s an amazing illustration of how God uses pain to produce some of the most meaningful stuff through our lives.

Our best music often comes from the place where we feel the most pain.

• Think about Joseph-the pain of betrayal ultimately positioned him to save a nation.
• In the New Testament, it was the same persecution that threatened to destroy the early church that caused the Gospel to break out all over the known world.
• Ultimately, it was through the unspeakable pain and suffering of the cross that Jesus accomplished the greatest victory in the history of the world.

Where’s the place of the greatest pain in your life?
Is it possible that your greatest impact and most meaningful contribution is going to come from that very same place?

You’ve got to sing from the place where it hurts the most.

I don’t know where I originally heard the term swagger jacker. I don’t think it’s technically a theological designation. But I want to sanctify it for a minute and bring it over into a ministry context.

Have you ever faced any swagger jackers in your attempt to do God’s will?
I’m identifying a swagger jacker as anyone who tries to back you down from doing what you know God has told you to do. There are plenty of swagger jackers exposed in the pages of the Bible. They make a lot of noise. They inflict a lot of pain. But they simply can’t stop the purposes of God-if God’s servants stay focused on God’s will.

The swagger jackers laughed at Noah for building a boat to prepare for a flood before anyone had ever seen rain. They weren’t laughing on day 40 of the storm.
Joseph’s swagger jacker brothers threw him in a pit. But they couldn’t keep him from rising to a position of prominence in the palace-and ultimately saving their lives despite themselves.
Nehemiah faced swagger jackers like Sanballat. They insisted he halt the work of the Lord and come down off the wall. He stayed on the wall and finished the work.

And so on. You see the point.

I’ve seen too many men and women of God stripped of their courage by swagger jacking critics, haters, and generally negative or mediocre people.

Keep building your boat.
Stay faithful in the prison.
Remain on the wall.

Don’t concede your confidence in Christ. No one can take away your swagger if your swagger is rooted in Jesus-powered by grace-activated by faith.

I read a post by Seth Godin in 2005 about how smart companies make new rules. It was all about redefining markets and challenging the status quo.
I never forgot it.

It got me thinking about different approaches to the Christian life:
you can either keep the rules, break the rules, or make the rules.

Most people associate Christianity with keeping the rules. Don’t murder or commit adultery; do serve & give to the poor-etc.
Of course, God’s laws are perfect, and His principles should be honored.
But Christianity is so much more than a set of rules to keep.
Jesus perfectly fulfilled the Law. We live by grace, through faith.
When you try to be a rule keeping kind of Christian, you always come up short, and will probably eventually burn out. You’ll also miss the essence of the Gospel.

Some people opt to reject God’s Word altogether and break the rules.
We’ve all seen people who profess to be Christians drift off into rebellious, sinful, destructive behavior. Sometimes they even justify their loose living by claiming that they’re expressing their freedom in Christ. Of course, this is nonsense. How can we who died to sin live in it any longer? Carnality is the worst form of bondage-and the furthest thing from freedom.

I believe Jesus came to make the rules. New rules. To upgrade our paradigms and renovate our hearts in His image. Jesus redefined religion. And those who follow Him should be a part of creating and exemplifying this new standard to the world.

Some people keep the rules.
Others end up breaking themselves against the rules.
True followers of Jesus make the rules-set the standard, and change the world.

-Pray out loud.
-Write your prayer out.
-Read your Bible out loud. Start here.
-Apologize to someone. Even if it’s not primarily your fault.
-Talk to someone you trust. If you don’t have someone, hire a professional.
-Rest.
-Exercise.
-Start eating better.
-Drive around listening to a sermon.
-Turn up some worship music really loud. Shut the door. Sing along.
-Go back and do the thing you know you were supposed to do.
-Get organized.
-Repent.
-Encourage somebody who would never expect it.
-Get back in church. Serve somewhere.
-Quit complaining.
-Go on a date with your wife.
-Tell somebody thank you.
-Give some money away.
-Call on the name of Jesus.
-Remember how far He’s brought you.
-Realize that He’ll never ever leave you.

Just a few ideas to get you started.

You can take it from here-

If you’re going through a time of testing right now, keep this in mind:

The way you respond to this test
Determines what you get to do next.

If you fail the test, you must repeat the grade level. Or, you can pick up the credit hours in summer school. Either way, wouldn’t you rather just do it right the first time around?

You can’t clep out of any of the courses in God’s divine degree program. Whatever you’re going through today is a prerequisite for the next level of His plan for your life.

Show up early. Stay late. Get a tutor. Do your homework. Sharpen your #2 pencils. And hang in there through your test.

Graduation day is closer than you think-