big need, big cross, big love

“Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much.  But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” (Luke 7:47) In reality, no one has been forgiven little, some just think they have.  The beauty of the gospel is that only when we know how big our need for forgiveness is, will we ever be able to comprehend how big the cross is, and how big the love of God is.  Big need leads to a big cross, which leads to a big love—a bigger love from God, a bigger love for God, and a bigger love for others.  God’s love becomes bigger than we could have ever asked or imagined.

By contrast, the Pharisees had a small love because of how small they perceived their need to be.  They spent their whole lives trying to reduce their need and had somehow convinced themselves that they had succeeded.  But all it did was make them judge more and love less.  Sound familiar?  It does to me.

Most of us think the goal of spiritual life is to reduce the gap between us and God.  We think that if we can just be better and perform better then we might get closer to him.  But the truth is that the older we get, and the more we get to know God, the larger the gap gets rather than the smaller.  Thus, the cross does not get smaller and smaller but bigger and bigger.  And the bigger the cross gets, the bigger love gets.  The bigger the cross gets the more we realize how wide and long and high and deep is the love of God, which makes our love for him grow in return.  We love because he first loved us.  That’s what the “sinful” woman had learned that the Pharisees had not.  Let’s be like her and not like them.

Lord Jesus, thank you that those who have been forgiven much love much.  Help us to see the enormity of your forgiveness so that we might also see the enormity of your amazing love.

trying too hard

“I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.” (Psalm 131:2)

We put so much pressure on ourselves to make things happen in life and in ministry, when the only thing we can really do is let them happen.  God is the only one who can make things happen.  We cannot take personal responsibility for things that only he can do, and yet we do it all the time.  No wonder we’re so tired and weary.  But that’s not where it stops, it also leads to other issues.  Issues like busyness, overwork, fatigue, anxiety, insecurity, and burnout, to name a few.  It is not healthy when we begin to see ourselves as both essential and indispensable to a process that is ultimately all up to God.  In fact, it makes us the worst version of ourselves: manipulative and demanding, always pressing and pushing and forcing. 

If only we could learn the wisdom of this ancient prayer.  If only we could let go of our stubborn pride and arrogant self-sufficiency.  If only we could release our desperate need to be needed and our deep longing to be significant.  If only we could be free from all our compulsions and obsessions and become still and quiet before God.  Then we might finally find ourselves in the loving embrace of our Savior and put our hope fully in him.  Then we might finally be the non-anxious presence this world needs us to be.

weary and burdened

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”  Weary and burdened.  Two words that just seem to go together, kind of like thunder and lightning.  Two words that are somehow intimately connected.  And, sadly, the two words I most often hear as I sit with people who are in ministry.  They are tired and weary, and most often because they are loaded down with the burdens, demands, and expectations of ministry.  Some that have been put upon them and many they have put upon themselves.

The word weary comes from the Greek word, kopiaō, which means to be exhausted with toil or burdens or grief.  And the Greek word for burdened is phortizō, which means to load one with a burden or to be loaded down.  So, it appears that weariness comes about as a direct result of being weighed down with the demands, expectations, toil, and pain of life and work.  It is the residual effect of carrying the overwhelming load of the fears and the joys and the pain and the sadness and the hopes and the dreams and the oughts and the shoulds of both ourselves and others.  No wonder we’re so weary!  No one can possibly carry all of that. 

But Jesus tells us that we do not have to.  He says, “Come to me.  Do not try to carry that load yourself.  Give it to me; I will carry it.  Take my load yoke upon you, not the one you have made for yourself, and not the one the world or the culture has made for you.  My yoke is easy, which literally means well-fitting, and my burden is light.  Attach yourself to me and I will do the heavy lifting.  Come to me and give me your burdens.  If you do, I will give you rest.  I will renew your strength and restore your soul and help you to recover your life.  But you must come to me and let go of the burden.  It is mine to carry, not yours.”

What is the state of your soul these days?  Are you weary or burdened?  What load are you carrying that is not yours to carry?  Why?  Will you come to him, give that load to him, and receive his rest?

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11:28-30, The Message)

knock, knock

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)

What kind of God do you think is waiting on the other side of that door?  Is it a God who is too busy and preoccupied to be bothered?  Is it a God who is distant and disinterested in answering for someone like you?  Is it a God who gets irritated and frustrated when someone knocks?  Or is it a God who takes his sweet time answering, if he answers at all?

But what if God is different from all those pictures.  What if he’s a God who has actually been excitedly waiting for you to come and knock.  What if he’s a God who really wants to see you, to talk to you, and to welcome you.  What if he’s a God whose heart is so full of love and affection for you that he can’t wait to open the door and sweep you up into his great arms of love.

When my two grandsons come over to our house, they run from the car to the front door.  They can’t wait to knock because they know the heart that’s waiting on the other side of the door.  They know what kind of reception they will get.  So they rush to the door and press their noses against the glass on either side of it with big smiles and full hearts.  And as they knock, they jump up and down in anticipation of the welcome that’s to follow.

But what’s going on in their hearts pales in comparison with what’s going on in mine.  I’m so full of love and affection these two little guys that I can’t get the door open fast enough.  And when I open it, they leap into my arms and wrap me up in their embrace.  Needless to say, when this happens my heart is so full of love that I’m about to burst.  And God never fails to remind me: “You know that’s how I feel about you, right?  So, come.  Run.  Knock.  I can’t wait to open my door, my arms, and my heart to you.”

Heavenly Father, help me to get a clear picture of exactly who it is on the other side of that door, because the picture I have of you will impact everything else in my life, particularly how I ask, seek, and knock.  Help me to know you as the good and loving Father that you truly are.

thy will be done

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)

Has prayer become a tactic?  Has it become something we use simply to try and further our own plans and agendas?  Has it become a way of trying to get God to fall in line with our will, rather than a place where we seek his?

Prayer is about submission, not manipulation or coercion.  It is a place where we surrender our schemes, plans, desires, and agendas in order that we may follow his.  It is about aligning ourselves with God’s will, rather than seeking our own.  Thus, it has a lot more to do with listening than it does with speaking.

walking in humility

“Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” (Mark 7:28) Our world is so full of demandingness and entitlement that we would never expect an answer so beautiful and humble from the lips of one who was in such a desperate situation.  In fact, we would have expected her to storm in, shouting protests, and demanding something be done.  But not this woman.  She knew exactly what Jesus was saying and wasn’t offended by it at all.  Maybe it was because of the smile on his face or the tenderness in his voice.  Or maybe it was simply because this woman knew exactly who Jesus was, knew exactly who she was, and was responding out of reverence, respect, submission, and humility.  There was no demand in her voice and no entitlement in her heart.  Jesus knew that and he wanted everyone else to see it as well.

But didn’t Jesus just call her a dog?  How could he do something like that?  How dare he!  Jesus and the disciples had just come from a conversation with the Pharisees about what is clean and what is unclean.  And the very next thing you know, he was approached by a woman who was considered unclean by the Pharisees and the teachers of the law.  In fact, they would have called her a dog, so Jesus was just using their own terminology to teach them something about the heart of God and the heart of man.  So, tongue planted firmly in cheek, he employed the power of metaphor to invite a “Gentile dog” into a beautiful and healing conversation with God in the flesh.

And in the midst of this short conversation, it was her heart and her attitude that put the Pharisees and teachers of the law to shame.  She was not offended.  She was not demanding.  She did not turn hostile.  She went with the picture.  She was like: “You are one hundred percent correct; I am a dog.  I deserve absolutely nothing.  I’m not asking to take food out of the mouths of the children of Israel, but can I at least have the crumbs that fall under the table, even if I don’t deserve them?”  And as Jesus healed her daughter, I wonder if anyone in the crowd thought to themselves, “I need to be more like her, because her spirit and her attitude brought joy to the heart of God. 

So, what does it look like to walk with God in humility?  It looks just like this woman.  It means fully recognizing who he is and fully recognizing who we are.  It means ridding ourselves of all entitlement and protest and demandingness.  It means living lives of reverence, respect, submission, and surrender to his will and his ways.

Lord Jesus, forgive us when we get too full of ourselves.  Forgive us when we get too big for our britches and start demanding that you behave the way we want you to behave and do what we want you to do.  Forgive us for our entitlement and demandingness.  Help us to know what it means to walk in humility rather than arrogance.

stewardship of the soul

“God formed man out of the dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life.  The man came alive—a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7, The Message)

What exactly is the soul?  How was it created?  What is its purpose?  And how do we nurture and take care of it?  On top of that, what does it look like to be a good steward of our soul? 

The soul is where the life of God resides.  It is the place where God breathes his divine life and breath into us and then breathes it out of us into his world.  That’s how ministry is designed to take place; it involves both an inhale and an exhale.  Unfortunately, all too often, we live our lives in a constant state of exhale and make no room to inhale his life and his presence and his love.  Which leaves us with nothing of value, power, or substance to breath into the lives of those God has given us to care for. 

To be a good steward of our soul, then, is to recognize where the soul came from in the first place; it is a gift from God.  Thus, we have a responsibility to take care of it.  We are always asking how to be good stewards of our time, our gifts, our abilities, our money, and our resources, but what about our soul?  How often do we consider what it looks like to be good stewards of our soul?

Simply stated, it means to make time and space for God to breathe his divine life into us.  It means to stop, look, and listen.  It means to be still and sit quietly before him.  It means to be fully present and fully attentive to him.  It means to stop talking and start listening.  It means to stop running and spinning and toiling and start praying.  Only then will we be living a life of depth and quality and power that’s actually worth passing along to others.