"I'm Leveling-UP."

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

Four years ago, June 28, we lost our beloved grandson to a dragon called cancer.  This coming Friday we will gather to remember Braden on what would have been his 19th 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 die without hope.

I am profoundly grateful for the hope, the certitude, we have in Jesus Messiah and the healing death brings for those who have embraced Him through effective, saving faith (Romans 10.8-11). 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, separated forever from God.  Without death we would be chained to a relationship of enmity with God; no reverse, no repair--no redemption.  NO hope.

So then, death became the modality that God uses to foil Satan's attempt to co-opt God's crowning creative act, humankind. It 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 consequence, physical death; it's also here that we learn that death is part of God's bigger plan for hope and the redemption of humankind.

The rest is history.  The Apostle pens this remarkable statement in 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."

Love is a four-letter word, spelled H-O-P-E; more importantly, death simply marks the first day of the rest of our lives, Paul reminds Christ-followers in 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. 

I'll never forget Braden's exclamation to us as we gathered in his room at the hospital the afternoon before he died. We'd just been told by his Doctor, very tenderly, that Braden would soon leave his body behind.  Braden's father, Matthew, sat down on the bed, looked into Braden's eyes, and asked him how he was doing, to which Braden smiled and said "Is that the worst-case scenario?  I'm leveling UP.  I am going to be fine dad.  I'm ready."  

He was.  

Are you?  

We don't get to be here long. 

What will you do with Jesus? 

Life is fast.

Liveitwell!

Contact me at goodneighbaier@yahoo.com if you'd like to know more or simply need to chat about "hope."

Metrics Matter.

This from the closing "reveal" scene in The Delivery Man... 

"I'm a meat truck driver.  I'm an incompetent meat truck driver."  To which his father replies "You ARE an incompetent delivery man.  It takes you four times longer to deliver the meat than any other driver.  But, everywhere you go, they love you."

So, how do you measure success?

Metrics matter.

Liveitwell!

Note to my younger self.

Today, I write to my younger self, FOR my grands--Kellen, Gabriella, Grayson, and Gwendolyn.

I know you will all make choices about the way you live your lives, how you will invest your energy, and what kind of legacy you will eventually leave behind. I'm writing because I love you all and don't want to leave these words unsaid.

It's taken me a few years to figure this much out; were I able to send a note to my younger self, this is what I'd say... 

Know, Trust, and Serve God.
Follow Christ.
Be kind.

Act justly.

Be humble.

Lean into weakness, seek God's strength.
Think noble thoughts.
Read and reflect on history.
Be inclusive.
Love people.
Never mistake tolerance for love.
Be generous.

Invest your best in people.

Take care of your bodies.  Stay fit, alert, and cultivate mental acuity.
Teach yourself to say "I do not know."
Think God's thoughts after Him.
Be patient.
Stand up to be heard, sit down to be appreciated.
Cultivate quirky, life is more fun in the quirky lane.
Be a leader, willing to follow.
Invest in your family, you don't get do-overs.
Work hard to make other people successful.
Make mistakes. Learn from them, then celebrate them.
Wake up every day with a hunger to grow.
Be accountable.
Trust that loss isn't the end of life.
Believe that death isn't the end of eternity.  It's a portal, not a wall.
Be grateful.
Learn that God meets us in the stillness.
Embrace the things you fear. You may never master them, but then again, you might.

Finally, I pass on to you my life verse, Micah 6.8.  In it God provides us with an amazing guiding principle for your lives:  "With what shall I come to the Lord...He has told you, O man, what Is good; and what does the Lord require of you?  But to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God."   

Your choices will shape your character. 

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

  

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

This is the miraculous power of grace.

I love you all more than life, wish I could be there to see your lives play out to the "end of the race."  I'll be waiting for you at the finish line.

Do. Love. Walk...

Liveitwell!

Life...is hard.

Life is hard. Age diminishes us. Disease ravages us. Then, we die.

Or...

Life is hard and softens our hearts.  Age diminishes us and equips us with wisdom. Disease ravages us and empowers us to embrace hope.  Then we die and pass into eternity.

What happens to us, all of us, in the course of a lifetime is simply a variation on the same theme.  What sets apart those not beaten, from those that are?  It's  what that "lifetime process" produces in us. 

Pandemic's serve to remind us, we are fragile and our bodies will eventually fail, some sooner than others, but for all of us life ends in one final breath.  

The ability to see our sojourn as a prelude to "something more" is the key to empowering us to embrace all we experience in "time" with wonder; while anticipating what we glimpse of eternity with hope.  

Yes, I'm talking about faith.  A specific "effective-faith" we are given instruction about in the Scriptures; the Second letter to the church in Corinth, written by the Apostle Paul (5.1-5):

"For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.  2 We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. 3 For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies.  4 While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life.  5 God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit."

Be sure not to miss v.5...God prepares us for Next, gives us a holy desire to "level-up" and then seals the deal with His Holy Spirit--indwelling, empowering, informing us--all the while transforming us into the image of Jesus Messiah--in this life with godly character--in the next life with a heavenly body.  Yahoo!

Over the course of my adult life I've invested time and love in weary people...all filled with hope.  They are fragile over-comers.  Their lives are a tapestry illustrating God's grace, love, presence, power and certitude about Next.  Paul acknowleges this too (5.17-19, 21)...

"17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 18  And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them...21 For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ."

Trusting Jesus Messiah, through effective faith, is what makes the difference--"so that we could be made right with God through Christ."  No one makes it out alive.  It's what happens Next that matters for eternity.  It's a quality-of-ETERNAL-life issue.  The Apostle Paul spells out exactly what we must do in his letter to the church in Rome...

"...if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For 'everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'”  Romans 10.9-13

Next looms close on the horizon for each of us--we know it's there, what will you do with Jesus?  I'm ready.  Are you?  

Liveitwell!

Towers come...and go.

I glance out the window from my study as I write these words.
It looks like, Spring. 
  
I hear the rustling bows of the trees bending in the wind.
It sounds like Spring.

The sky is a canvas of blue being overtaken by gray as a weather front moves through, bringing a promise of rain later today.
It acts like Spring.

It's Mother's Day.
A celebration of tender love that marks a transition on the calendar. 
A movement from Spring, soon to be Summer.

The normal cycle of the Earth around the Sun is in full swing.  The ways we mark the essential relationships in our lives, celebrate them, remain, in place.

Yet...
Life has changed.  
The Pandemic of 2020 has ravaged the planet;
...our 401k's
...our security
...our economy
...our prospects
...our social mores
...our confident expectations.
Eight weeks.  

Towers go up.
Towers come down.  
We are in control?  
We are not. 
Eight weeks.

I can't shake this feeling.

I am reminded about the first notable tower in history.  The Tower of Babel [Genesis 11].  That tower was imagined as the penultimate expression of independence 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; we are not in control.

Fast forward to Century 21.  

God, in His grace, has allowed humankind to apply our intellect and ingenuity, these also graciously granted by God, to "discover" thousands of widgets that insulate us from the ill-effects of the fall: pharmaceuticals, asphalt, steel, plastic, roads, air conditioning, engines, automation--the list is endless.

We, in turn, tainted by sin and swelled with pride, believing ourselves to be wise "shake our fists" at God and say, "You see, the Scriptures are a 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 legions of disease, 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, idolatry, shamanism, injustice, politics.

We run from God; we can't hide.
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..."all the king's horses, and all the king's men, couldn't put Humpty-dumpty back together again." 

Eight weeks to change; the pandemic is the Waypoint.

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

Eight weeks.

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

Liveitwell!

Real love says "no."

"Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good." Romans 12.9 NLT

As a follower of Jesus Messiah, I am instructed to:
1. Love others.
2. Hate evil.
3. Embrace good.

So then, not only is it possible, it is commanded of Christ-followers: love people, without embracing their broken behavior, like Jesus does.

Tolerance is NOT love. Love does not REQUIRE tolerance.

In-other-words, I CAN "love sinful people and hate sin" and BE acting IN LOVE toward those whose behavior I cannot tolerate. I cannot hate broken people.

Love is non-negotiable. 

Tolerance is fraud.
Do. Love. Walk.


Liveitwell!

Something old. Someone new.

Friday our oldest granddaughter, Gabriella, will be 6.  I remember the day she arrived; May 1 came on a  Thursday back in 2014.  As it happens, we received two deliveries that day.

The first was a package generously provided by my sister, filled with carefully prepared and lovingly packed treasures from the life I've lived--and was lived before me.  A tapestry of dreams, tenderness, ambition, hard work, disappointment, and triumph woven through photos, cards, letters, and other memorabilia.  It contained a narrative of my past.

The second was of course Gabriella Grace, fearfully and wonderfully made, and delivered by our lovely daughter-in-law, Miranda, coached by our son Joseph.  "Gabs" arrived at 11.10pm, weighed 7'10, and was just over 20" long.  She, along with her little sister, our children, our grandsons and God willing, our greats...they are my future.

Legacies are brittle.  Soak that in for a few moments...
I am grateful that I can look back, look around, and dream about the future.

I am grateful that I have a sense of where I'm from, where I've been, and who I've become. 
I am grateful that at this moment, I can continue to shape character and destiny.

My story was shaped--altered when at age 15, I made a choice to embrace Christ and believe His story.  He took my brokenness, yes, even at age 15, and built me into a man whose heart's desire is to be like my savior, Jesus.  Laura, our children, know all too well the difficulty we've faced as a family and my shortcomings as a man, a husband, and a father.

Here's my point: it's these challenges, these failures that add strength and color to legacies--that will give my grands and great-grands the "roots" to make choices which will empower them to continue to shape character and destiny; to build bridges from their past to a solid Christ-centered future.

Indeed..."All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife, but He made something beautiful out of my life..." 47 years with Laura; our children Erin and Joseph; their spouses Matthew and Miranda; our grandchildren, Braden, Kellen, Gabriella and now Grayson and Gwendolyn.

Something old, someone new.  Legacies are brittle.  Lean into Christ.

Liveitwell!

Two Camps.

 The confessing church has aligned itself into two camps.  This division has created a wall that impacts Christ's church in a profoundly negative way.  The challenge Believers face is to embrace both the justice and eschatological mandates of the Gospel; it isn't either/or, it's both/and.

The irony is that the same end, compassion for people who Jesus described as “sheep without a shepherd,” drives both camps, yet we (all of us) proclaim a different gospel when we fail to apply the whole counsel of God to our mission.  

We have allowed this blindness to strip the church of its relevance on the one hand, and spiritual power on the other--leaving only a shell for those "asking, seeking, and knocking" to behold. 

The good news is that God isn't marginalized by our failure to embrace the whole Gospel. His love continues to find a way. If only we who have confessed Christ as Lord and Savior, and embraced effective faith could come together, then face the harsh reality that WE are the problem.  

Would that we might seek God's face, confess our sin, then healing would come.  That's the promise of 2 Chronicles 7.14... 

"...If MY people who are CALLED by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their (our) wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land." 

May His will be done on earth as it is in heaven; through Christ, let it be.

Liveitwell!

Dust to diamonds.

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

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 describes 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

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, at 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 the veil, from...dust to diamonds.

We don't get to be here long.

Liveitwell!

Soon. Very soon.

This is the hardest part of the weather calendar in Northern Indiana.  The calendar says it's spring; reality says, "it's ugly."

Things are ready to go; mowers have been serviced, the hedge has been trimmed.  The irrigation system is functional again.  Bud's are on the trees and bushes...the evergreens aren't just green now, they are awake!  Robin's are busy being the "dirty birds" of the neighborhood.  Chance tracks fresh scent everywhere we go.  We are ready, where is spring?

It feels like Thanksgiving Day when I was a little boy.  Would our guests and extended family ever arrive...

"Mom, how soon will they be here?"  

"Pretty soon, BJ."  

"Mom, do you think they're still coming?" 

"BJ, they will all be here, just like last year." 

"But mom, we are ready, where is everyone?" 

"They are on the way."  

"Then, where are they?"  

"BJ, why don't you wait outside for them, 

greet them when they arrive."  

"I think they changed their mind, 

they aren't coming this year." 

That's the way our conversation advanced every year.  A little boy, anticipating a favorite event, thinking it would never happen, but it always did.

I'm ready, but spring just hasn't arrived...yet.  When it does come and the days slip quickly into summer...the memory of this misery becomes dim, almost dreamlike.  Every day a new color explodes someplace along my route to the office.  It's warm, balmy...with life-sustaining showers from time to time.

There are many "seasons" in our lives...they come, they go--some are better than others; they make life exciting and always produce something my memory clings to, which delivers a lifetime of pleasure and expands my perspective.

Yes, spring hasn't arrived--and COVID 19 remains, but summer's comin.'  It will be OK sooner than later.  I can wait; in the interim, the memories from "seasons past," the good, the bad, the painful...they sustain me.  It's a wonderful life.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.


Liveitwell!