THIS, is power.

My choices will shape my character. 

Good character will empower me to be the kind of person God uses to make hard lives easier.  

Making hard lives easier is a legacy that will transform my world, one needy--and often undeserving, person at a time.  

This is the miraculous power of amazing grace.

bN tGit

Deja vu.. All over again.

It's ground-hog day (the Flim) in America.  

More debate over a government shut-down, mud-slinging from both sides of the aisle, candidates sullied by their hubris and worse, a POTUS who thinks he's a visiting Professor who can lecture the world into a better, safer place.

As a Nation we've enjoyed a two-party system that has worked for the American people, bringing the best ideas from BOTH sides of the aisle in a synergy that has eclipsed ideology.  

"Father-in-heaven, deliver that kind of dynamic environment to us again, that we might continue to be a force for peace and that which is good, here and around the world. Heal our division and elevate the aspirations of our leaders to pursue values driven by character, reflective of our diversity, and aimed at the common good. Grant them shrewd judgement to desire and do the right thing. Give us the clarity we need to select leaders worthy of our trust; restore the confidence of this Nation in those selected to govern.  Empower our leaders to work shoulder to shoulder moving us forward for future generations.  Through Christ, let it be."

bN tGit

Power Failure

The Church in America is unplugged, it's powerless.  By power I mean spiritual gravitas which is the result of a clear anointing from God.  Most of the country perceives the confessing church to be the most conservative wing of the Republican Party.  I grew up hearing my mom say, "if the shoe fits wear it!"  Unfortunately, we've been tagged with this perception the old fashioned way, we've earned it.  We've chosen to contend for the soul of America using the political process--a grave error.  The shoe fits. 

"But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying its power."  2 Tim 3.1-4 

We routinely come to cultural "waypointes--places on a journey where the traveler can stop and change course."  It's past time for the confessing church to change our trajectory and become THE church. The fact is we've settled for sloppy seconds; too many of us worship in places that are driven by forms rather than power.  We've allowed popular culture to shape our vision of what Christ's church should be, what it should look like; we have embraced the wrong set of outcomes.

Today we measure the quality and effectiveness of our ministries based on the Big 3: People, Buildings, Revenue.  In fact, it's not difficult to erect buildings and fill them with people that generate million-dollar budgets.  False religions, cults and sects do it all around the world.  Jim Jones did in San Francisco and finally in Guyana.  Jimmy Swaggart did it, then did it AGAIN in Louisiana.  

People, buildings and money aren't wrong, they simply aren't the unique signature of Christ's Church.  These, alone, won't produce transformational-redemptive power, nor are they the indicators of the anointing of God.  Powerless religion, form-driven religion has a micro focus: it sees "the church" as the end.  Forms--the way we "do church," the things we do or don't do that identify us as "christians," are paramount.  This is the kind of context Jesus came into in Judea; the context the Religious power brokers endorsed and protected.

Form-driven religion becomes a template that blinds us to the brokenness which surrounds us.  Form-driven religion makes us think in "wrong-headed ways" about what the world deserves v. what God desires--Us v. Them.  Form-driven religion becomes a tyranny which chokes our vibrancy and shrivels our generosity.

Power-driven godliness sees loving, reaching and changing the world as the end.  Power-driven godliness acts without conditions.  Power-driven godliness seeks to make hard lives easier.  Power-driven godliness understands that wealth, leadership, talent and spiritual gifts are resources graciously given by God for His redemptive endeavor.  Power-driven godliness doesn't seek relavance; it is relevant.

Outcomes are critical.  Matthew 9..."35 Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.  36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.  37 Then He said to His disciples, 'the harvest in plentiful, but workers are few.'" 

We've come to a waypointe.

bN tGit

Capre Diem

"How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone." James 4.13 NLT

It's Monday.  A new week.  A new day...a gift of time, energy and opportunity.  What will you do with it? 

Will you wish it away; squander the "moments" it will produce, or will you seize it, make it great and do somehting significant; invest it in someone, something, that will outlive you? It's your day, make the most of it.

Today--here, gone.

bN tGit

Will-Power

I am reminded throughout the Scriptures about "the sacrifice of praise." 

When I will myself to offer Him my sacrifice of praise--not allowing environment, personalities, music style or selection to distract me--without exception I experience a "breakthrough" TO worship, where a dynamic exchange takes place--Kingdom authority for authentic Worship. 

I am persuaded this is why we see so much conflict around "worship" in the church today. Failure to worship prevents Believers from experiencing His empowering flow: from the throne of God, to the people of God.  As a consequence we underachieve; we never fully appropriate "His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think." Ephesians 3.20

When I bend my will, God empowers me for victorious living.  Will-Power.  

bN tGit

Never Forget

".. It is not some arbitrary cycle of history that made the post-War era what it has been. It is American power, and American leadership."    President Harry Truman

POTUS Truman had the vision to see, after two catastrophic World Wars, that it was time for America to step up as a pro-active force for good. He understood what would happen without US power and leadership. His bold decisiveness gave our Presidents who followed a template; some applied it better than others. But our 43rd and 44th has chosen to forge a very different path and as his own Sec Def Hagel stated while serving last year,  "the world is exploding all over." 

We have not forgotten this day.  We have, however,  forgotten the lesson.

bN tGit

Less is more

Control the "Controllables"

Time.
Activity.
Stress.
Disstress.

Why don't we say "no?"  Our fear of loosing an edge is ravaging relationships, creating monster expectations, ruining our health and creating distance between us and God.

The fact is we really do live in a "less is more" world.  "White space" is what makes good Art so fetching, great landscape design so dramatic and relationships work.  It gives us permission to breath, to be creative, to recharge and recreate.  

Who "moved the cheese" and convinced Americans that the contemplative life is empty and worth-less?  
We did.  

Stop.
Breath.
Listen.
Smile.


bN tGit

We will Rise

Several years ago I received a note from a good friend..."my dad's cancer is progressing. His time here is probably down to days..."  When I read those words I was transported back to the last time I was with his dad.  I was saddened by this news, concerned for the grief this final act of life would introduce to my friend and his family...and not.

My friend's father did lose his life; but not once was he in danger of losing his hope: the certain promise that he, as a believer in Jesus Christ, would finally be transported into the presence of His Lord and Savior, there to enjoy life as HE designed it to be.

Life is hard, then we die.   We will all lose our lives, but we need not lose our hope.

Praise God for the hope we have in Christ, and the healing death brings for those who have embraced Christ through effective saving faith.  For these death is not something to be feared; it is a gracious provision that carries us back into a "face to face" real-time relationship with God. Without death, we become eternal beings, like Lucifer and the legion of angels which were cast out of heaven because of their rebellion...eternally separated from God, without hope of redemption.

Death became the modality that God uses to foil Satan's attempt to co-opt God's crowning creative act, the human race.  So then, death is the definitive "check-mate" and demonstrates God's mastery; always steps ahead of evil and the chaos of sin. Genesis 3 describes the event that initiated the rebellion of Adam and Eve to sin and it's necessary result, death; it's also here that we learn that death is part of God's bigger plan for hope and the redemption of human-kind.

The rest, is history, 1 John 4.9,10...

"God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son 

into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 

10  This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us 

and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins."

We know that love is a four letter word, spelled H-O-P-E; more importantly, we know that death simply marks the first day of the rest of our lives, 2 Corinthians 4.16-18...

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet 

inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary 

troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 

18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, 

since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

We will rise, thanks be to God.  It's a GRACE day.

bN tGit

He's not finished.

"When I Grow Up (to be a man)"  Link to song

This is of course one of the "sounds of summer" delivered to us by, who else, The Beach Boys. It's a favorite. When the DJ's at KRLA or KHJ in Southern California spun this selection I'd turn the radio up (even louder) in my 1960 Ford Falcon--and be transported into thoughts of...the future; "how will my life play out?

Today, when I select this tune on my iPod, or hear it on my Pandora "Beach Boys Radio" selection, I'm transported into thoughts of...the past; we all grew up.  I settled down early, married my High School sweetheart 42 years ago and WILL "love her for the rest of my life." While it's true that life is rarely fair, it's always good.

I've grown up.  Now that I'm growing older, I think about legacy.  What will I leave behind that will distinguish my place in the passage of time?  What will my grandkids carry through their lives that has my fingerprints on it?  Have the lives of people been enriched because they spent a season in close proximity with me?  Have I been an agent of positive change?

I'm grateful I'm not done. 

       I'm grateful I'm not alone. 

            I'm grateful He's not finished: 

"Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from stumbling and 

will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault.²⁵

All glory to him who alone is God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

All glory, majesty, power, and authority are his before all time, and 

in the present, and beyond all time! Amen."  Jude 24, 25

bN tGit

The Hurt.

One year ago this week Robin Williams took his own life.  

I recall having a lunch-time conversation with a friend about that tragic decision.  My friend expressed his dismay over the way many in the most conservative wing of our faith tradition had chosen to excoriate Robin, because of suicide.

Robin had an extraordinary gift--not his comedic gift--but the one which allowed him to tap into what being human is, what it feels like, what it looks like, then being able to create a "connect-the-dots" visual--using words, diction and TONE.  When we heard him speak we realized "that's it...that's me!" He moved us and made it possible to breath again, he delivered relief and hope because he understood us.

Being that intuitive and dialed in--takes a toll of a person's soul. In the end, Robin could not find his "Robin." Don't be harsh because Robin was too vulnerable; because he couldn't believe his way to a faith based answer.  Simply learn the last lesson he left us--no man is an island. 

That said, we all hurt; there is a healer.  His name is Jesus.

"Jesus come and break my fear, wake my heart and take my tears

Find your glory even here, when the hurt and the healer collide."  Mercy Me

Jesus extends to every person this timeless promise:  Matthew 11.28-30

28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Follow this link below to a beautfiul expression of our frailty and God's provision..."The Hurt and The Healer" by Mercy Me.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxqfDs-64I0

It's Friday, but Sunday's comin.'

bN tGit