My Mom, The Fighter

With Mother’s Day coming, I stopped to take a look at my mom and my growing up.  It wasn’t always easy.  My brother, mom and I did our best to get through some really difficult times.  I know some have faced greater challenges, but growing up the way we did would challenge all three of us.

When I look back at my mom, I see a woman who fought for my brother and I to have as normal of a childhood as possible in the face of her divorce and loneliness.  She exemplified love to us in how much she sacrificed for us as kids.  We really didn’t have a whole lot, but looking back, I see my mom as this beacon of faith, selflessness and strength.  My mom, through her life, taught me that life really isn’t about me, but it’s about loving God and others as much as possible.

She exemplifies love even today for me.  After my dad had left, she was in another bad marriage that lasted a number of years.  That step father caused crippling hurt and pain in our family that has been  difficult to overcome.  Then after all of that settled, my mom met the man of her dreams.  His name was Ben.  They were life mates.  Their love for God and each other was very strong.  After being married for only a few short years, Ben died of cancer.  My mom, who is so driven by the love in her heart has to this day chosen never to date again or fall in love with another.  Her heart is with the one she loves, even though he has been gone for some time now.  People never imagine “till death do us part” to mean the end of two lives.  It’s usually one.  For my mom, it seems to mean faithfulness for them both to the end.

I want to love like my mom.  My mom’s love for God is so great that He’s almost all she loves talking about with me.  She takes the Bible word for word and it’s not just stories to her, but it’s God’s character and holiness that leap daily from the pages into her heart. Her heart belongs to God, Ben and her family and friends. 

I want my sons to see this passionate man in me, who like her, will spend himself on behalf of them and others.  I want them to see me burn with love for God and people.   I want them to see my joy, peace in storms and a burning love for my wife that will never be compromised by this world.  I want my wife to know that I will love her well beyond our lives together and I long to be the husband she deserves.  If I could thank mom for anything this Mother’s Day, I would thank her for placing these passions in my heart.  I know that I love more because of her example in my life.  Mom, thanks for everything.

Your First Love: Ephesus Revisited

Revelation 2:2-4

² “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; ³ and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary. ⁴ Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”

I was listening to a message on this passage this morning and it really grabbed me.  I've blogged about these verses before, but the message made me want to hit on this again, because I realized that you can be doing everything right, you can dot the i’s and cross the t’s and still miss it.

I started thinking about what loving God looks like for me.  If we are not careful, our relationship with God can be nothing more than a routine or ritual.  I think God wants much more, so I personalized it trying to figure out what that looks like.  When Michelle and I first started dating, she would do things to make me feel loved.  There were times when she just made me feel special.  We could have nothing to do, but she just wanted to be with me.  She could take an empty day and make it full.  It’s why I still love her today. 

When I compare my love for God to my marriage, I could not imagine what my marriage would be like if Michelle only came to me when she had problems, things she wanted, or if she only came to me when she needed help doing something. Unfortunately, that’s how we treat God sometimes.  It's one of those thoughts where I had to stop and just tell God, "I'm sorry".  I know He wants more from me than this.

When’s the last time you prayed to God just because you wanted to talk Him?  When’s the last time you did something for God that had nothing to do with you?  I think we are so results driven, that it’s easy to forget that this is truly a relationship we have with Him and not a request line.

These verses are calling us not only to serve and stand, but to do these things on a foundation of love for God.  If you rip the foundation out from under the house, the house will fall.  We need to love God before we take the first step in ministry, before we quote the first verse of scripture to someone, before we pray the first prayer.  Love changes everything.  It changes how people see you and not only you, but how people see God through you.  Your first love must always be first, then everything else you do should be done in love.  It's the difference between a full relationship with God and a to do list.

The Importance of Relationships

I love when I study and God shows me the same thing in two different places and I have that "aha" moment when the Spirit reminds me of something I should always have been doing.  This has been one of those weeks. I got to share this with my life group folks whom I love more and more each week and I wanted to jot this down before I forgot what I had been taught in my studies.

I was reading Exodus which I really had to stop and focus on items and look things up to follow along.  However, in Exodus 33, it grabbed me.

Here's the back story.  Moses comes back after being with God to find Israel worshiping a golden calf and many people died in their idolatry.  God was going to care for them, but He intended to leave them because He couldn't handle their sin anymore and He had enough. However, the book then focuses on Moses' relationship with God.  Their relationship changes everything.  It picks up in verse 11:

Exodus 33:11-18

11 Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.
12 Moses said to the Lord, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ 13 Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.”
¹⁴ And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” ¹⁵ And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. ¹⁶ For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”17 And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” 18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.”

What I love is that Moses doesn't care about any promise and loves God so much that he won't leave God.  God's response is favor towards Moses.  Then after God expresses His favor, Moses, overflowing with love asks God, "Please show me your glory."

Then I was hit again in Ruth.  In Ruth, Naomi sends her family away because she is a widow and is returning home.  Ruth, a Moabite, however responds alot like Moses:

Ruth 1:16-17
¹⁶ But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. ¹⁷ Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”

I started to see a pattern in what God was showing me and I looked inward.  I started asking questions inspired by Moses and Ruth:

How deeply do I love people?  Do I have relationships in my life that are worth standing up for?  Do I demand God's presence?  Do I say things like, "God, I'm not leaving for my job unless you go with me!  I'm not teaching a word unless you speak through me."  Really, I don't always do that.

Then I really started thinking about shallow relationships and what they do.  The scary thing that hit me is that if I choose not to love like a Ruth or a Moses and I settle for shallow relationships, my relationships ultimately keep the focus on me and keep me the most important person in my life.  This can easily bleed over into my relationship with God.

If I treat people that way, what's to stop me from treating God that way?  My life's prayer request become mostly about me because I don't invest in people and my fear is that my prayers to Him look more like my wish lists instead of adoring Him and seeking His glory.

I think it's all connected.  When I place myself out there for others, others become my priority and my prayers become about them more than me.  As I sacrifice for others, I learn to sacrifice for God.  I want to love people intentionally.  I want close relationships that cause me to care more about people and God than I do myself.  I hope that I love family, friends, enemies and God passionately.  In that, I believe that I will settle for nothing less than being closer to God.

Welcome Home

I was thinking today about what it would be like for Jesus to return.  I had seen a few videos of military coming home and surprising their families and it got me thinking.  There's this warm feeling many get when a soldier shows up and the family realizes what's going on.  I believe that it's something that resonates in us all.  When people see each other for the first time in awhile, there is this immediate sense of joy, found in family.

I love how Jesus calls God His Father.  In that, I believe that family is a reflection of our relationship with God.  Right now, we are physically separated from Him, but much like a son who cries for joy when his dad shows up, one day we will experience that same joy when God arrives on the scene.

And we are told how our Heavenly dad will respond:

Revelation 21:4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.

When I read the first four verses of Revelation 21, I realize more than anything, that God is establishing an eternal family that will never end.  Our God is a God of family and He will arrive on the scene one day to gather His kids.  Many who believe wake up each day with that hope.

Returning to hope

Romans 12:9-13


9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.


When I think about church, this is what I would love to experience when I come to a gathering of believers.  Imagine a church where people sincerely love each other and devote themselves to one another for the sake of honoring Christ.  When people begin to put others above themselves, our lives begin to overlap and we form a fabric knitted together by the Holy Spirit as the body of Christ with the mission to glorify God.


I for one, have experienced this in a small group that I pretty much said goodbye to last week because of what I know God is calling me to do.  In that group, I felt the love of God in so many ways through these people.  People who encouraged me, pushed me forward and people I put myself out there for.  In this, God was teaching me even moreso how to love.  I am forever blessed by their company, time and attention.  I am closer to God because of their lives.  Through them, I was able to see Romans 12:9-13 acted out in my life.


Let me ask you this.  Have you experienced this in church?  Some have, but many haven't.  In fact, the opposite is true for so many.  The church has caused many people great pain.  So the question I had was, "How does this 'overlapping-of-lives-church' really happen?"  I now believe the answer is found in verse 12 and specifically, "Be joyful in hope".


I want to clear something up here.  In the English language, we say, "I hope it doesn't rain." or "I really hope my car starts."  As pointed out by Chip Ingram in his book r12, the word used in this context only means "wishful thinking".  In Romans 12:12 however, I looked up the word in the Greek and it literally means this:

hope (to anticipate, usually with pleasure); expectation (abstract or concrete) or confidence:

- faith, hope.

So if I could expound on this passage to "be joyful in hope", it is saying that we are joyful in the confidence of the cross of Christ.  His grace is sufficient to save everyone who would follow Him and seek after Him.  Those four words say alot!

With the advent of the 80's and 90's, there has been this horrible teaching that has shifted our view where our faith has become more about our prosperity and happiness than it has been about hope. 

In talking with people over the past years however, this "relationship-with-God-based-on-happiness" teaching has unfortunately spread.  I have seen three basic stages people experience when painful seasons come, and they come for us all.  They are as follows: 

1. If a relationship with God is based on happiness (instead of hope) and that person begins to experience trials, I usually hear, "I think God is mad at me."  The person begins to feel ignored by God.


2. Then if the painful season continues, a person typically will say something like, "I don't think God loves me."  At this point, trust is shattered and this person is typically processing some form of betrayal.


3. And if that painful season lasts for a long time, their happiness whithers away to the point where they will say, "What God?  If He exists, He surely doesn't know me or love me."  With happiness long gone, a person will feel like that there is really no meaning to their lives.  God could not possibly be there because they haven't been happy in a very long time.

If I could say anything at this point, it would be that people don't do this on purpose.  I've done it in the past myself and have finally understood that life is not about my happiness, but His hope.  And the crazy thing is, when my life is about His hope, my happiness level shoots through the roof!  I found a passage where Jesus spells this out plainly.  In John 16:33, Jesus says this:

John 16:33
New International Version (NIV) 
³³ “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” 

I really had to stop and break this down and I believe it speaks volumes. When He says, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.", Jesus is referring to the Gospel.  Salvation through Him. 

When He says, "In this world you will have trouble.", He is speaking to happiness.  We will not always be happy.  Trials and painful seasons will come.  I hate to speak the obvious here, but if you look at our world lately, it really does look painful and more trials are probably coming.


And then, just when it looks hopeless, Jesus defines hope to the tee.  I think this is the very definition of hope for all who put there trust in Jesus.  He defines it as, "But take heart! I have overcome the world.”


To bring this full circle, it is through this Biblical hope, this confidence, that we can love others beyond ourselves.  It is through hope that we can share the Gospel and give ourselves away.  It is through hope that we can face hard times and love uncommonly.  Not only that, God is most glorified in us when we demonstrate His hope and peace in our greatest of pains.  It is with His hope, that we love sincerely, give freely and care genuinely.

It is Well with My Soul

We actually sang this song in church and after a conversation with some friends, I wanted to remember the history behind the song.  In my mind, I actually tied both the song and our conversation together and did some research just to bore the masses here.

The song is penned by a man named Horatio Spafford in the late 1800's.  Mr. Spafford walked through a very difficult life to say the least.  In 1871, his four year old son died.  Shortly after that (same year), a historic Chicago fire ruined him financially.  In 1873, he was planning a trip to Europe with his family but sent them ahead by boat since he was dealing with zoning problems after the fire.  The ship carrying his family collided with a sailing ship and all four of Spafford's daughters died.  His wife Anna survived and sent him a now famous telegram that simply said "Saved alone...".

As Spafford sailed to his wife to comfort her, he penned the hymn "It is Well with My Soul" as he sailed near the area where his children had died.

If I stopped here, that would be enough for just about anyone.  But the story goes on.  The Spaffords later had three more children.  Another son died in infancy.  You would think at this point, that they would check out.  But not the Spaffords.  They moved to Jerusalem and founded a group called the American Colony whose sole purpose was to serve the poor.  The colony became the subject of the Nobel prize winning "Jerusalem" by Swedish novelist Selma Lagerlof.  Their love for God and their realization of His love for them brought God glory in a way they could never have realized.

You see, Horatio and Anna Spafford longed for a better country.  They knew that this life was temporary and they chose to give their lives to Christ despite their adversity.  They were "Heavenly minded".  It reminds me of this verse:

Hebrews 11:16
Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Tough times will come.  There is nothing concrete about our world.  It will change and in time, our lives will too.  The one constant that we have is that God loves us and will never leave us and He states it clearly in Hebrews 13

Hebrews 13:5b

Never will I leave you;

never will I forsake you.

It is with that concrete foundation of eternal love, that we become heavenly minded and realize that our lives have been set into place to serve God, love God, and give ourselves to Him in all we do.

Romans 12:1
 ¹ Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

We should be like the Spaffords and know that no matter what happens, we can say that "It is Well with My Soul" because God will never let us slip through His fingers.  I pray we are heavenly minded offering ourselves to God because of all He's done and for the love He will never relinquish.  I leave you with the words to hymn:

It Is Well With My Soul

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to know,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Refrain:
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life,
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

But Lord, 'tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul.

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

Horatio Spafford

Is The Darkness Passing Away?

I was reading 1 John and I got stuck on 1 John 2:7-8 (NASB).  It states the following:

 ⁷ Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard. ⁸ On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.

I had to think about this one for awhile.  Especially the statement, "because the darkness is passing away".  I couldn't help but ask, "Is it really?"  When I look at our world today, it looks darker than ever and it seems to be getting even darker. 

As I continued on, I realized that 1 John 2 is really talking about two separate deaths.  There is one death that is happening within us as we "abide in the light" 

Verse 10 talks about this internal "passing away":

 ¹⁰ The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him

Then from verse 15 on, there is another death or "passing away" that seems to be occurring.  Verse 17 states this:

¹⁷ The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.

We see that while darkness seems to be thriving, it doesn't take a scholar to see that this world is falling apart.  There there's that word I see again in verse 24:

 ²⁴ As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.

So I hit the Greek for this one and most of the meanings are very similar:

"abide, continue, dwell, endure, be present, remain, stand, tarry (for)"

The message seems simple when we look at it, but it suggests a few things:

·         If we are told to "remain", it suggests that we are going to be tempted to walk away.  Whether it is what we are facing or what we are tempted by, we must make a conscious effort to "remain".  It won't just happen.  We must be purposeful in remaining. I love this verse:

Proverbs 4:23
²³ Watch over your heart with all diligence, 
For from it flow the springs of life. 

This implies that our heart will be tempted and we must guard it intentionally.

·         If we are to "endure", it means that there are times that it will be hard "to be in the Light".  There is a popular misconception that Christianity is easy.  It's not easy.  You may not be successful or have your "best life now."  Your faith may involve sacrifice or even suffering.  Jesus put this easy life thought to rest rather quickly:

John 16:33

³³These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

Jesus states that it will be hard, but He never leaves us without hope.  He just promises that it will be worth it.

·         If you are to "stand", you may lose friends.  You may not be popular and your stand may require courage in facing fierce opposition.  I love this line from the movie Courageous:

A father says to his son, "What I want for you is that you seek the Lord, that you trust Him, even if it means you're standing alone." 

What would you do if everyone you knew turned their back on you because you trusted God?  Could you do it?  I believe it's harder than we think.

So I closed my Bible with a new appreciation for the word "abide".  The world is passing away.  The old me is passing away as I draw closer to Christ.  No matter what I face in this life, my biggest hope is that I abide in Christ, no matter what the cost.