Life is fast.

When the road of life is clear and smooth,
too often we miss the beauty 
within our easy grasp.

We gaze ahead with intensity 

through the portal which beckons us, 

"...move quickly along the way!" 

Life waits...just ahead. 

Indeed the journey, 

not the destination 

unravels mystery, transforms confusion; heals pain.

Life is fast; breathe it in...

Liveitwell!

  

The Main Thing.

On December 28, 1968 (age 15) I said "yes" to Jesus, and at that moment my life was transformed; 51 years is...a few. I want to be clear, I have, since then, experienced a number of epic failures. Even so, I have endeavored to align my heart with the things that matter to God and sought to be a clear reflection of His empowering presence; it has for the most part been, by His grace, a slow and steady "long obedience in the same direction."

The dynamics of our culture, over my lifetime, could be described as a devolution from "conscience" and evolution to "relevance" as our moral compass. It's ironic that the most extreme expression of the conservative mind, libertarianism, is in many ways the platform upon which progressivism has been constructed. My point is that "systems of thought" (even theological systems of thought) can't change the trajectory of the human spirit.

God does that one person, one decision, at a time. We just don't have the temperament to pull that off. History is filled with movements which morphed into extremism that marginalized human beings, in the name of a "greater good," producing tyranny and crimes against humankind.

It's not my job to save my culture from itself.  The part I have been given, as a Christ-follower, is to point the people in my sphere of influence to God, who can. 

This is "the main thing" for me. I'm not called to point them to "systems" or movements that will save the day, but to the God of eternity who loves human beings with an everlasting and long-suffering love, a transformative love. He does the formative work in transforming people; this can change the culture.

So then, how can I keep the main thing, the main thing?

• Be humble. 
• Be accountable.
• Love my spouse. 
• Act as an agent of peace. 
• Trust in the power of God. 
• See people the way God sees them.
• Talk to people about Jesus Messiah.
• Focus on walking close to God on a daily basis. 
• Empower my kids and grandkids with a legacy of godliness. 
• Declare the principles and precepts of God in a loving, inclusive way. 
• Love unconditionally my enemies and those who might seek to hurt me. 
• Pray for those raised up as leaders in my church, community, and nation.

Having produced a template to work toward... "12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us (me)." Philippians 3.12-14 NLT

Systems and movements, by their very nature, devolve. God, "is the same yesterday, today and forever." 

I choose God. He produces the change which gives me, gives us all...HOPE.

Life is fast.  Press on.


Liveitwell!

A Gray, Cloudy Day

Lake slips into a mist of gray

Horizon broken by trees stripped by Fall, 
bracing for winter.

Seasons change, storms pass.

A metaphor for life?
Fifty shades of gray, stripped by storms, 
bracing for loss.

Where is the hope?

A Blue Herron floats over the water.
The Spirit floats over the chaos of life.
Flashes of color break through the mist.
Seasons change, storms pass.
God--not lost in the gray.

Hope.

Liveitwell!

Beautiful Music.

These are difficult days...yet not unlike the climate-of-culture in the first Century before the ascendance of the Gospel.

As the Scriptures predicted, culture has again devolved to a post-christian paganism where pre-born children are targets of infanticide, gender is a mythic construct, love is whatever we declare it to be and values are defined by those who wield the most persistent, cynical and compelling narrative.

Yet this remains: People on the Way have been given a mandate to declare this Truth, "For God so loved the world He gave His one and only Son, that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish, but have eternal life." John 3.16

It seems, too often, that some within the Faith Community would be content to simply shout it from the rooftops with conviction, yet absent compassion. This loveless approach FEELS like these zealots are bent on brandishing the sword of truth to "cut others down to size" in the name of fidelity to the Gospel--the good news. According to these, to do otherwise amounts to a compromise of Truth...indeed it is to preach "another gospel." What tragic irony. This amounts to a christianized version of Jihad.

One need not compromise the message to deliver it in a fashion that communicates truth, urgency, conviction, exclusivity in its truth claims--in a context of grace, love, mercy and civility. The Gospel is exclusive AND INCLUSIVE at the same time--God's Word is unique and powerful in this way.

He has called us to proclaim the Gospel in a context of suffering; to live our lives based on the Truth of God's Word-- IN the world but not OF the world--that His Will might be done on Earth as it is in heaven. Peter touches on this in his second letter, vv.14-16...

"14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame." ESV

We NEVER compromise Truth. We NEVER accommodate culture. We NEVER embrace human wisdom as a lens through which we selectively apply God's Word. This praxis will certainly lead, has led, to suffering, persecution and aggressive steps to marginalize us and God's Message. That said, WE ALWAYS deliver that message with gentleness and respect born from our life-altering encounter with God's grace and mercy.

When God's people, empowered by God's Spirit, in submission to God's Son, live transformed lives...it is breathtakingly beautiful and powerful at the same time. It produces a synergy, “beautiful music” that the Holy Spirit uses to impel people to effective faith...Confessing "Jesus is Lord and God raised Him from the dead." Romans 10.5-13

Life is fast.  Play on.


Liveitwell!

Vexed...not Beaten.

Some years ago I was asked about a passing comment I'd made in reference to the Tower of Babel; the inquisitor wanted me to expand on the comment.

I've always attempted to find "dynamic equivalents" in the culture around me to help people understand a deeper principle from the Scriptures. The Tower of course was the penultimate expression of hubris on the part of humankind; our effort to shake a collective fist at God and say "See, you aren't so transcendent after all." Foolish pride led to an inflated opinion of who we were; God breathed, language changed and chaos ensued. We discovered we were no match for the transcendent God.

Fast forward to modern culture: God, in his grace, has allowed mankind to apply his intellect and ingenuity, these also graciously granted by God, to "discover" thousands of things that insulate us from the ill-effects of the fall: drugs, asphalt, steel, plastic, roads, air conditioning, engines, automation--the list is endless. We in turn, tainted by sin and swelled with pride, believeing ourselves to be wise "shake our fists" at God and say, "You see, the Scriptures are myth; there was a big-bang and then there was 'protoplasm' and look at how we have evolved...we have the power to give and take life. We don't need myths to prop us up anymore. We ARE gods." 

In reality, everything we touch we corrupt. 

Look at what we call our "system of Justice." We condition the air at the same time we poison it with hydro-carbons. We pollute the planet, poison our bodies, can't beat cancer or aids and when/if we do, something else always emerges. Regardless of how effective we are at blunting the effect of sin on life and the planet, sin always trumps our best efforts...and God allows it, to point us to our need for a Savior and His gracious provision for our redemption.

The farther evolved civilization becomes the further it devolves into moral and spiritual chaos--abortion, failed economies, addiction, violence, corrupt governments, greed, broken relationships, idolotry, shaminism, social injustice, politics. 

Think about it, in 1965 LBJ gave us the Great Society. These unfunded mandates have done nothing to enlighten culture and end poverty--but they have driven us to edge of bankruptcy and destroyed families while perpetrating genocide on the poorest of the poor. The smarter we get, the dumber we are. We can run from God; we can't hide.

So then, civilization as we have fashioned it, has become humankind's most recent Tower of Babel; the work of "our hands" which demonstrates our independence, our ability to "get it done without God." We set out to be like God, and in a final irony, we create the very modality that could be the end of life as we know it. We can destroy it, but we can't fix it..."and all the king's horses, and all the king's men, couldn't put humpty-dumpty back together again." 

The lie that deceived Eve, continues to vex us; but we aren't beaten. This Truth has set us free...

"When we were utterly helpless...God showed his 

great love for us by sending Christ to die for us 

while we were still sinners." Romans 5.6a,8

We don't get to be here long.
What will you do with Jesus?



Liveitwell!

Dust to Diamonds.

Given the presence of carbon--along with vast amounts of time, temperature (rangeing between 1800 and 2400*F) and extreme pressure (650,000-850,000psi) the Earth will produce diamonds.  It`s this remarkble process that makes diamonds a realatively rare and always valuable comodity.

It should surprise no one that God uses a similar process in bringing people with effective faith into a beautiful reflection of the image of our Saviour, The Lord Jesus Messiah.

Dust to Diamonds.

Paul decribes this process for us in his second letter to the church at Corinth...

7 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.

8 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. 9 We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. 10 Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.

11 Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies.12 So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you.

13 But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.” 14 We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. 15 All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.

16 That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. 17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

--2 Corinthians 4.7-18 NLT

Pressed on every side, perplexed, hunted, knocked-down; NOT crushed, NOT despairing, NOT abandoned, NOT destroyed.  BUT suffering; sharing in the death of Jesus--for one glorious purpose: that the life of The Savior might be clearly seen in our bodies, IN us.

Dust to Diamonds.

God uses hard places to fashion us into a new version of ourselves, still us, but transformed in ways that manifest His presence, His grace, His mercy.  This is not what we will be, but we are sufficiently different in ways that produce confident expectation--hope.  Look at how Paul describes it to the church in Rome, where he compares our struggle with the cataclysmic impact sin has had on the Earth; thus all creation waits...

18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. 24 We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. 25 But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)

--Romans 8.18-25 NLT

Dust to diamonds.

What is responsible for this transformation and the hope it delivers?  Paul makes this clear to us at the beginning of the eighth chapter of his letter to the Roman church...

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

--Romans 8.1-4 ESV

Don`t miss it...for God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh (humankind) and for sin (He absorbed the penalty for sin on His own body in our place) He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.

Sin broke the planet.

God is in the process of restoring what He created.  The tipping point of the restoration is the passion, sacrifice, and resurrection of Jesus Messiah.  We have been redeemed and restored, positionally, now we are waiting--suffering still, but knowing that`it is finished.` 

In that suffering, as we lean into our weakness, our fragility, there, in that moment the Manifest Presence of God shines brightly through us and our suffering--for us, for a watching world to behold in wonder.  His strength made manifest through our weakness.  Indeed, `the wound is where the light shines through.`

Dust to Diamonds.

Suffering is NOT payback. 
Suffering is NOT God`s plan spinning out of control.
Suffering IS the last dying gasp of sin--Check, NOT Check-Mate.
Suffering IS the process God has sovereignly allowed to transform our lives on this side of veil from...

Dust to Diamonds.

Don`t get to be here long.
Liveitwell!

Politics & Personal Power.

Father-in-heaven...

Politics has become a growth industry in America, this is a problem; too much ambition and too little service. It didn't start this way. The noble has become ignoble.

Regardless of party affiliation, the pursuit of power, wealth, celebrity too, has become the focus of many elected to serve "the people" in Washington. Congress has been sullied by gridlock, the love of money, sexual scandal, graft and abuse of privilege.

I pray You will raise up people from every segment of political vision, women and men of integrity;  selfless leaders willing to make tough decisions that reflect justice, kindness and humility, without regard for how those decisions poll: that, will be patriotism.

...Deliver us from evil.

Liveitwell!

Paradise Found

Laura, my wonderful soul-mate, loves and raises Roses. (One variety is named "the Paradise." Hence "Paradise Found") I marvel at her skill and tender care as she cultivates these beautiful and fragrant flowers. This was written several years ago as a tribute to my amazing wife. She has extended her gardening gift with remarkable results. I'm reposting my tribute poem here--a reminder of what an extraordinary, lovely, gifted, woman she is; thanks Laura for filling our lives with the simplicity of beauty nurtured from the Earth.

Summer.
Deck brittle with age, surrounded by color, a wall.
Satin petals: Red, Pink, Ivory, Maize.
Thorns a reminder: look, don't touch

Water droplets perfectly formed, wait to escape.
Bees busy, a harvest of nectar.
Woman sits, watches, filled with joy at the sight.

She labors with tender care.
Scarred by thorns, undaunted.
She plants, she feeds, she waters.

The full bloom of her effort,
a feast for the eyes
Delicious to smell.

Autumn.
Sun's path plunges
colors blaze then fade.
Not an end; pause, to rest.

Winter.
In time she plans for the deep white sleep of winter.
Well covered. Glory there still, but not.
They wait.

Spring.
She prepares the soil, a feast.
They awake from slumber, race to come out.
Canes the channel of life, carry lovely crowns through voyage to summer.

Summer.
In full bloom they linger.
Paradise found,
Celebrated, loved; a reminder,
In the begining God.

We don't get to be here long.

Liveitwell!

Breath it in...

When the road of life is clear and smooth,
too often we miss the beauty within our easy grasp.

We gaze ahead with intensity
through the portal which beckons us,
"...move quickly along the way!
Life waits, just ahead." 

Indeed it is the journey, not the destination
that unravels the mystery.

Breath it in, let it out.

Liveitwell!

Leveling up?

June has come and gone, again.  Fall is just weeks away.

Three years ago, June 28, we lost our beloved grandson (on this side of the veil)  to a dragon called cancer. Wednesday we gathered to remember Braden on what would have been his 18th birthday; he is a constant companion in my heart. He battled the disease and in the end, he lost his life, but he never lost his hope; the certain confidence that he, as a believer in Jesus Messiah, 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 in one final breath; but we need not lose our hope.

Praise God for the hope we have in Messiah and the healing death brings for those who have embraced Him 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 death we would be chained to a relationship of enmity with God; no reverse, no repair--no redemption. NO hope.

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, demonstrating 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--Braden declared "I'm leveling UP."  Thanks be to God. It's a GRACE day.

We don't get to be here long. What will you do with Jesus?


Life is fast.

Liveitwell!