Tuesday, May 13, 2014

365. He Does All Things Well



Right now, it probably seems as though a lot of your life is not going the way you want it to. I know that’s how I feel. If I had a magic wand, there are dozens of things I would change about where I am and what’s going on. My guess is, you’d like to borrow the wand when I get finished with it. The funny thing is, you probably don’t feel that way about some of the things in your past anymore. I’ve found that the longer people walk with Jesus, the more they start to embrace their past as being part of a story God is writing or a tapestry He’s weaving together to bring them here from there. It doesn’t even matter all that much how bad some of those things from the past were. As people grow in the Lord, they look back over disappointments, confusions and even tragedies to find evidence of God at work. This is part of the paradox of having faith in Christ. When we’re in the midst of troubles, we find ourselves struggling for answers and doubting the love of God. When we make it out of those same troubles, we look back and see the Lord’s hand, tenderly making a way for us. My hope for my own life is that over time, the gap between straining and praising will diminish. I know that in the end, when my race is run and I’m with Jesus, I’ll look Him full in the face and say, “You did everything well.” May He give us the faith to say those words today and may He give us the grace to know that when we can’t say them, He still loves us.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

364. He Doesn’t Want What To Use What We Want To Be



When people try to help you feel better about your insecurities, what do they usually do? Do they try to pump you up and tell you how awesome, talented, beautiful and smart you are? Do they cite all the amazing things about you that make you better than other people? Of course they do. That’s how friends are supposed to respond when you feel terrible about yourself. Here’s the thing though; those compliments never really convince you, do they? When your friends try to build you up, it’s never enough, is it? Our insecurities are like bottomless pits. They can’t be filled. When we try to feed insecurities, we just wind up hungrier than when we started. We shouldn’t be feeding our insecurities, we should be starving them. The Apostle Paul does a startling thing at the beginning of his first letter to the Corinthians. He essentially says, “Remember when Jesus called you guys? You weren’t brilliant and beautiful. You weren’t powerful and prestigious. You were ordinary, weak, needy folks.” It turns out that the things we all value aren’t very important to Jesus. In fact, all the things we most want to be only seem to get in Jesus’ way. He doesn’t just want the coolest person in the room, hoping they’ll bring some of their coolness to the Kingdom. He wants to utterly change broken people who need redemption. It’s time to starve our insecurities by embracing humility, accepting who we are and realizing Jesus is crazy about us because He just is and no one can change that. Jesus wants you - with all your flaws, scars, weaknesses, temptations and wrong. He loves you for you and that’s enough. 

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

363. He Wants To Be Invited



Why doesn’t Jesus just split the sky open, call a world-wide, live-streaming press conference and prove Himself to be who He always said He was? Wouldn’t that solve everything? Wouldn’t that settle all the debate about which religion is legit? Wouldn’t it answer all our doubts? If Jesus just showed up and proved Himself to be the uncontested King of the Universe, people would have to decide where they stand, right? If He did that, we would all be forced to make room for Jesus, right? Honestly, I don’t know the answer to all those questions, but I know that for whatever reason, Jesus hasn’t revealed Himself in that way. He wants people to trust in Him without having all the proof. He wants us decide to make room for Him in our lives even though we don’t really have to. He wants us to choose to love Him. After Jesus rose from the dead, He disguised Himself. You would think He would be strutting His stuff in front of all the people who had Him killed, but He didn’t. He met with people in small groups and even hid Himself from them. One couple talked with Him on a road and didn’t even know it was Him. When they reached their village, Jesus acted as if He were going further on down the road, but these two people begged Him to go with them and eat dinner with them. That’s what Jesus wants. He wants people who don’t have to hang out with Him to want to be with Him. He wants to be invited into your life. He wants you to bring Him into your day and into your heart because you love Him.

Friday, May 2, 2014

362. He Thinks Very Highly Of You



My guess is that you don’t like you very much. I bet you look around at other people, their lives, their talents, their accomplishments their bodies and wish you had what they have. I bet you want to be like them because you don’t want to be like you anymore. Oh, I wish I could give you even a momentary glimpse of the way Jesus feels about you. I wish you could peek into His outrageous affection for you - even for the tiniest fraction of a moment. If you got even a sideways glance of how much Jesus esteems you, it would shock you to the core. I know you probably believe Jesus loves you; but for most of us, our belief in His love is kind of like our acknowledgment that the sun is big. As in, we know the sun is big. We’ve seen the diagrams, but if you were able to actually go into space and get close to the sun without getting burned up, you would be totally overwhelmed by the size. The thing is, Jesus doesn’t just love you, He loves you beyond your ability to comprehend it. And that’s not all. He honors you. He thinks very highly of you. He sees you as His very own child and He warns people not to mess with you because there are angels charged with your care who report to God face-to-face. Don’t miss that. There are Heavenly military forces - eternal, invincible warriors of light who exist to serve and care for you. Jesus doesn’t just love you. He has deployed His best troops to guard your very life. To Jesus, you are the most precious thing in the entire universe.