Posts Tagged ‘mercy’

Paid in Full

July 16th, 2010

I dunno about you but I hate paying bills.  It’s not so much about getting rid of the money ( although that part is stinky), is more about the accounting and making sure it’s paid on the correct date and getting the right amount and all of that stuff.  For those things that I don’t have automatically paid, it’s a struggle every month.  Usually there is a frantic middle of the night rush on the due date to pay the bill.  What a blessing on line bill pay is.

So isn’t it good to know that as followers of the Christ, there is no due date.  Well, there will be a judgement day, and for those not follower the Christ, that will be quite a problem.  But for those who have put on the grace and mercy of Christ, your sins will have been paid in full, and on the due date, your balance due will be a big fat zero!

23May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 (New International Version)

So, doesn’t knowing that you owe nothing and that its been paid for you provide some relief from the anxiety of the day and create a desire to repay that through your actions?  Get out there and impact those around you today.

Its freeeeeeeeeeeee!

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One Word – “Intense”

February 11th, 2010

“Intense”.

Several years ago that was the word that a co worker of mine used when asked to describe me in one word.

“Intense”.

At the time I thought that was cool.  I thought it was great – even awesome. And that’s how I was – “intense” – focused on the goal. Come hell or high water, I was getting the job done, not paying attention to the human carnage I left along the way.  The crying in the office – weak.  Calling people on the weekend and demanding they fix the problem – of course, they should be in here working as well.  Get it Done!  Deliver. Destroy.  That’s good.  Right!

Over the past week I watched my son’s basketball team beat two opponents by the combined score of 106 – 6.  Yes, that’s correct.  49-3 in the first game and 57-3 in the second.  The boys kept the half court man to man press going the entire game – pressuring the opponents into mistakes.  Some of the starters were always on the floor. They pushed the ball, fast break after fast break, up and down the court.  They destroyed the other teams.  Destroyed!  That’s good! Right??

No, its not.

I have learned that relationships are more important than the work, and the way you win is just as important as the win.  I have lived and played with intensity and I have seen the pain and carnage it brings.  I have worked with such intensity and disregard for others, that my job has hung by a thread, only saved by the good will of others.  Sometime,  in some way, that intensity must give way to mercy.  It must give way to grace.  We are called to give our very best to God.

1 Corinthians 10:31 (New International Version)

31So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

Colossians 3:23 (New International Version)

23Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,

We are called to play as hard as we can.  Give 100 percent – always.  But sometimes 100 percent means playing with control.  Whether on the court, in school, or at work we must know that doling out mercy and compassion and grace are equally as important as pushing and driving and forcing.

And that’s why my heart is heavy.  I sat at the scorers table for both games.  I saw the angst and brokenness of the players.  I saw the overwhelming helplessness and frustration of the coach, and the exasperation of the parents.   Did we have to run a half court man to man press when we were winning by 25, and it was obvious this team was not coming back even if we played with 3 players?  One of the teams only had 5 players.

1 Corinthians 9:24-25 (New American Standard Bible)

24Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.

25Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

There is a time to push it and to go right to the edge, and even more. But there is to be something different about those followers of the Christ.  There is also a time to be in control and to pull back, and to show restraint.  Both of these games demonstrated one of those great teaching opportunities, where we could taught our children the importance of  displaying control and restraint and modeling Christ is all that we do.

I still am a very intense person, a driven person, but I hope that if my current coworkers where asked to describe me in one word that they would pick something other than “intense”.  Maybe something closer to  “servant”, or “merciful”. (Most would probably just say “Jerk!”)

It maybe that I am so sensitive to this because I am in such need of mercy and grace myself.  Well, who isn’t?  And that is why I want to teach our children that control, and extending grace, and extending mercy, are a very important part of giving 100 percent to God.

So, I write about this to use the opportunity to teach, I hope that as you read on, you consider your life.  Is there a place where you still are running the full court press, where maybe you should drop back into a 2-3 soft zone and reach out to that person and provide the mercy that you have been all so freely given.

36Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Luke 6:36 (New International Version)

Also, what word would people us to describe you?

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Not Good Enough?

February 1st, 2010

I have a friend, that we will call Tennessee Jed.  ( This is not his real name, and it is not a reference to my real friend Pittsfield Jed, whom I refer to often) Anyway, I have a friend, and lets call him Tennessee Jed.  Tennessee Jed has been struggling.  He has had some hardships in his life, but mostly, his is struggling spiritually.  He feels that he is “Not Good Enough”, and that he can never be “good enough”.   He finds that his struggles with not doing what he may really wants to do, or being who he wants to be make him worthless.  So worthless, that God would not ever care to look his way.   Some one has convinced him he is not in a so called chosen predestined group of followers, and he does not have any way to salvation.  He thinks that he is  so worthless, that his friends don’t even need to look his way.

He is a broken man, and I write about him today for two reasons:

If you can and you care to, please lift Tennessee Jed’s name up in prayer.

Second, maybe you struggle with the same thing.  TJ (Tennessee Jed), thinks he has to do something to earn God’s love, and the love of others.  His was brought up with a errant view of grace and mercy.  Sometimes we find ourselves in that same place – wanting to work and prove that we are worthy.  Its just doesn’t work that way.  Mercy and grace are  free gifts, and those gifts move us to work and impact others.

If you find yourself there, check out this from Ephesians 2.  Yes, sorry this is long, but as I started reading it this morning, it was so motivating, that I just could not cut it down.  I have highlighted key parts for you speed readers.

Ephesians 2

1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

11Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (that done in the body by the hands of men)— 12remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.

14For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

19Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, 20built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

“He himself is our peace”  He is the way me escape the beat-down that we give ourselves.  If you find yourself in Tennessee Jed’s position, remember, you are right, you would never be good enough, except that grace and mercy are free gifts for everyone.  Take it. And find peace,  and become good enough for God.

What do you think?  I would love your comments.

DISCLAIMER: The is  a true story.  The names are changed to protect the innocent. And this is not a "I have a friend, but I mean me" story.

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The Dilemma is Resolved

December 18th, 2009

Its one week away!  Schools out!  And this is my last day of work for the year, no not the year, the decade!  The big day is just a week away.  Its time for more classic 80′s Christmas from Josh. Today, its back to the early days of MTV  Bill Squier and Christmas Is the Time to Say I Love You.  Nice!  Merry Christmas!

Yesterday’s post centered on the frustration of living with sin and duplicity of mind, so it seems just right today to keep going in Romans right in to the next chapter.  Romans 8 is one of my favorite chapters – the way it begins, the way it ends.  It tells the entire story in one chapter. I find it so rejuvenating.  So lets take a look today right at that beginning.

1Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.[c] And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.  Romans 8:1-4 (NIV)

Thats right now condemnation.  and then the Message.  Wow it brings it straight home

1-2With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

3-4God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.

The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us. (Romans 8:1-4, The Message)

The Dilemma is Resolved!  Wow, those are great words.  The Law is gone, Forgiveness has arrived – full of mercy and full of grace.  This is why Christmas is so excited.  Its not just the presents and the time off work with family, but the arrival of Grace, the arrival of Mercy.  The arrival of the resolution of the matter!

Rejoice, rejoice Emmanuel.

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Double Mindedness

December 17th, 2009

I am always amazed about how easy I can drift off course.  Sometimes I blame it on the myriad of conference calls I have each day and the mental context switching it requires.  Other times I realize its just how we are all made.  This week I have noticed how quickly I can go from singing a song of praise to shouting words of rage.  Or maybe its thinking about the gift of Jesus, and then being disgusted with the beggar at the South Terrace/ Belvior intersection?  Its this double mindedness, this schizophrenic behavior, this inability to focus on Jesus one hundred percent that frustrates me more then anything else in my daily life.

Its the reason that songs like Jars of Clays “Two Hands” have such meaning.  Even Paul talks about it in Romans 7

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am!

And I think it because of this struggle that we struggle so much with works and grace.  I know I do.  I want to work.  I want to produce good fruit.  I want to love deeply, I want to give, I want to serve.  Not because I think I can earn my way to heaven, but because I know that the fruit of righteous living is exactly what the Lord wants, and that its creates peace.  But I am sure glad for grace.  Because its grace and mercy that brings me right out of the rage and back to the song of praise.  Its grace and mercy that hits me in the head like a two by four and says – thats a person, a son of God standing on the side of the road.  Its grace and mercy that brings us to a place where we understand that works are not the means, but the fruit of a person who realizes how dependent they are on grace and mercy.  I also believe its this understanding and not by working harder, that will reduce the double mindedness of our lives.  I am going to test that.

Ephesians 4:31-32 (New International Version)

31Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

You see I so badly want to follow Ephesians 4:31-32, but a fail miserable quite often.  But I can take solace in the last 7 words.   Those 7 words full of grace and mercy.  The seven words full of a Christ, who came willingly.  Those 7 words can provide a place of hope and a starting place move to from double mindedness to obsession.  Will you move with me? Paul concludes that is the way as well in the rest of Hebrews 7

Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So lets start by celebrating the fact that the Christ, the newborn king, come to Bethlehem with the full intention of bringing forgiveness to you.

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

Oh, the with 9 days to Christmas, lets finish this on rocking note.  From Josh’s List its another cheezy 80′s Christmas song with a “Rebel Yell”- Billy Idol’s Jingle Bell Rock.

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