Chained to the Past

I hate the person I used to be. He stole years from my life and made decisions that have permanent consequences. When I think about the person I was and who I was involved with, it makes me mad. It makes me angry that I could have been that stupid. It infuriates me when I look at the entire situation and begin to think "what if...?" 

Then there's my beautiful fiancee'. She, too, had years stolen from her by sin. It makes me just as angry when I think about what she went through. The fact is, all of us that have been truly rescued have had to deal with the fact that we lost years that could have been spent praising our Lord and living for Him. Many of us carry regrets of things we lost, relationships that were permanently damaged, family that we should have been there for, and much more. 

It's easy to dwell on the past from time to time, or more frequently for that matter. But it's also a lie. Lies got us into the sin that we enjoyed for a time, and lies keep us chained to it once we've been set free. It's just a tool of Satan himself to keep us from sharing God's incredible love story for us. These are the verses that I fall back on time and time again to remind me that what Christ has done for me, for my lovely future bride, and for those that He has redeemed. 

Micah 7:19 - You will again have compassion on us; You will tread on our sins underfoot and hurl our iniquities into the depths of the sea.  

2 Corinthians 5:17 - Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone. Behold, the new has come!

These two verses remind me so much of how Christ has pursued us, redeemed us, and separated us from our sin that I used them when I proposed. For both my Princess and me, they are a constant reminder that we are not who we once were and that we are both seen as righteous, holy, and pure by our Father. That applies for you as well. The next time that you're feeling chained by the sinful grip of your past or you are having trouble seeing past that of those that you love, remember these two promises from Scripture and ask God to help you see again from that perspective. He will be faithful to you in that as He has been in separating you from your sin to begin with. 

The Problem with Christmas

One of the coolest things about the conversion from religion to relationship is the chance to see things from a perspective that you never could before. One that struck me like a 2 x 4 this year was Christmas. I just couldn't get into the holiday festivities with any real joy. Sure, I knew that this was the celebration of the birth of Jesus, but I couldn't look past the commercialism and shallow nature of the way our society treats Christmas.

Then I heard a couple of sermons and talked with some folks that got me thinking... and changed my perspective. First of all, there is the idea that Christmas makes no sense whatsoever unless you view it through the lens of Easter. Working backwards, Jesus was born to die as a perfect sacrifice. The culmination of everything and the act that sealed our salvation was His death and resurrection. Prior to His death, He had the opportunity to teach the people around Him and it was documented for us in the Bible. Then there was the birth itself. This was an end to 400 years of silence from God to His people.

Each of these should be celebrated, no doubt, but I think it's Easter that should be the one we really get behind. Yet it's Christmas that is celebrated and prepared for encompassing at least two months every year. Even the church seems to place a bigger focus on Christmas than Easter. Why is that?

#1 - Jesus was a disappointment to the Jews.

They thought He would come as a mighty warrior, not a humble servant. His birth and coming were widely anticipated and celebrated, but the reality of how He came didn't live up to the expectation. It was so bad, that the very people that celebrated His arrival had Him crucified. Even now, people of the Jewish faith don't believe that Jesus was the promised Messiah.

#2 - Babies are cute and vulnerable.

This is where I think society feels free to do what they want with Christmas. Jesus as a baby is cute. Babies aren't threatening to us. In fact, they need us! How easy is it to believe in a Savior that actually needs us as opposed to the other way around?

#3 - Nobody can overcome death.

Yet Jesus did! Replacing the cute, needy baby Jesus is a Savior so powerful that death itself can not contain Him. Someone that can defeat death? That makes Him invincible! Invincible is threatening, it can't be beat, and it doesn't need me for anything. The fact that Jesus comes to save us, that we need Him, and that there isn't anything He needs from us is repulsive in our culture. We are a society of self made men and women. We don't need anyone else's help unless they're a stepping stone up the ladder. But there it is in black and white and red. Every one of us needs a Savior and we are hopelessly lost without Him... the opposite of what our culture is feeding us.

So yes, let's celebrate Christmas. Let's celebrate the end of God's silence. But let's not forget that the birth and the teaching are meaningless without the death and resurrection. Without Christ's sacrifice and defeat of death, Jesus was just another fanatic or prophet at best. But He's so much bigger than that.

As we transition out of Christmas, let's look forward to the Easter season. Let's talk about the all-powerful, all-knowing Savior of the entire world. Let's tell our children about the man Jesus became rather than focusing on the baby that He was. Let's celebrate the fact that we are weak and helpless, and that it is us that needs Him.

2 Corinthians 12:9 - But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

How Big is Your Jesus?

Luke 7:36 - 50 recounts the story of the sinful woman who comes in and washes Jesus' feet with tears, dries them with her hair, and then puts expensive perfume on them. When questioned by Simon over this behavior, He goes on to tell a brief story of two men.

41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

Of course the one that was forgiven more loved more than the one forgiven less. The point that Jesus was making was that people who feel like they have very little to be forgiven tend to love Jesus very little, yet those that realize how much they have been forgiven love Him much more. 

The attitude that we carry today is very similar, but we are far more widespread as the one who has been forgiven little thanks to the message that "You are perfect just like you are" and "It's all about you." Let me put this idea from Jesus in a slightly different way. For most of us, Jesus tends to be only as big as the worst things you've been forgiven for. This is because we tend to believe only what our tangible experiences have taught us. Head knowledge tends to be meaningless unless we have had some kind of event to tie it to our hearts and make it real. 

Christians that have the strongest faith often have terrible things in their past. For some it was circumstances that they had no control over while others chose the path they went down. A fortunate number did not have to experience personal tragedy, but have been involved in significant events that there was no other explanation than that Christ Himself intervened to do something that should have been impossible. 

The reality is that Jesus had to dive just as deep into hell to pursue me as He did every other person out there, including you. One of the biggest issues that I had in my Pharisaical life was that I didn't really have a need for Jesus. Forgiving me for a cuss word wasn't that big of a deal. Checking out the women at the gym; it was only looking, I didn't touch. Training for triathlon instead of being home with my family; I was staying healthy so I would be around longer. 

Never did I think of myself as evil. I was a good person that sinned occasionally. Unfortunately, that is a lie that too many of us that call ourselves Christian fall prey to. You and I are born into evil and are evil by nature. Not just kind of bad, but truly evil. 

What is tragic about not coming to that realization is that it limits how big Jesus is to us. When He's forgiven the really, really big stuff, He's a really big Jesus. When you only feel like He needs to forgive the little sins, He's pretty small to you. The reality is that He's infinitely big, but you'll only begin to understand how impossibly powerful He is when you are able to see how impossibly lost you are without Him.

Why Christianity Can Be So Disenchanting

Romans 7: 21 - 24

"So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am!"
You might be interested to know that the above quote is written by Paul about himself. Yes, that would be St. Paul. The greatest champion of the early Christian church. Author of half the New Testament of the Bible.

I was listening to my favorite Christian radio station yesterday and starting thinking about the lyrics of many of the songs. My mind also wandered to many sermons I've listened to. Well, the majority of songs and sermons actually. There's something very important missing from them. Something critical to the new believer and the would-be believer. Christianity doesn't make you perfect and it doesn't take away your desire to sin.
We hear all of these things about how we should live and think, how good God is, and about the amazing things He has done. It just doesn't seem to happen for us. That must mean we either aren't really a Christian, or maybe our sin is too great to overcome, right? Wrong, but it's very easy for me to see why it comes across that way. When people talk and sing, they pick topics that sound really good, but they leave out what Paul is discussing here.

In the above verse, Paul has just finished telling us that he does the things he hates rather than the good things his mind desires to do. This is the post-conversion Paul by the way. He's telling us that being Christian doesn't make you perfect or life easy. It makes life harder. You now have the Spirit in a constant battle against the sin you were born with. It's a fight that lasts your entire lifetime. It's only over at death.

Let me share this with you: as a Christian, you will still sin. You will lose battles. You will make a choice that is clearly the wrong one and feel guilty about it afterward. You will win over your favorite sin one day and lose the next. Christianity simply offers that when you mess up, Christ covers it. It also offers that the Spirit living in you will do battle against your sinful nature.

There will be improvement. You will feel moments that match what the songs and sermons say. They'll slowly grow more frequent and longer in duration. But you won't escape every form of sin. Every obstacle you overcome presents a new one. The Christian life isn't easy, my friends. Anyone who preaches health and wealth while ignoring the reality is a liar. No one should be telling you that it's easy, only that the it's worth it.

Why Married Men Should Still Be On Dating Sites

There are dating sites, and then there are dating sites. When a person mentions that they are on a dating site, visions tend to pop up of Match, E-Harmony, or any of the other multitude of "dating" sites. There's an inherent problem that my Lady and I were discussing just last night concerning these sites, but I'll leave the issue of "shopping for a mate" for another time.

No, I'm talking about real dating sites. You know, how to date women kind of sites. My Princess and I are confident about where the Lord is leading us, but you'll still find me on dating sites. I think that married men should be on them as well. I believe that and do that because it's important to remember what dating really is... the pursuit of a woman. Trust me on this, or just ask one, but women (and men, for that matter) want to be pursued. It's an integral part of romance.

One of my favorite things to do is peruse Facebook to see what Good Guy Swag and All Pro Dads have posted. If I find something really good, I get to share it with my Lady. After she gets a chance to read it, we have something solid and meaningful to discuss. Through the course of discussion, I get to learn more about her, what she likes, and how she would like to be treated.

If you're single, use some discretion when looking at information from dating sites and be sure to choose who you listen to wisely. For those of us that are dating and married, the topics here are wonderful discussion generators that help us connect to the Daughter that God Himself has blessed us with. For you married men out there, "never stop dating your wife" is a really important part of your marriage and keeping romance alive. Staying connected to real dating sites will give you ways to keep getting to know who she is and rekindle the feelings that were there when you first started dating.

Not sure how this could actually work? Here's an article from Good Guy Swag about being a gentleman and the lost art of chivalry. Read it with your Lady and use it as a discussion starter. Find out what she thinks about those ideas, then start perusing those dating sites a little more and learn how to date your mate again!

http://goodguyswag.com/21-lost-gentleman-traditions-that-still-apply-today/

The Sunset and Storm - Looking Down

I was (an still am) awestruck by what I wrote about in The Sunset and Storm. In those minutes, I was inspired to look beyond what was happening in the sky and consider what it told me about God. I was me looking up at Him through those elements. But what would you see looking down from His perspective through the lens of the sunset and the storm?

There is the storm - a blend of moisture, warm and cold air, positive and negative charges, and decreasing pressure. The more of these elements that are mixed together, the more violent their collision becomes. Much like our lives, "minor" sins create minor rain showers. But those minor sins are the same elements found in major storms; add more of them and give them more time to develop and the collision becomes more violent when it all comes out.

Oh yes, my storm was the creation made from relatively minor things that were left alone to develop in my heart and soul. As I allowed those elements to mix and added to them, they grew stronger until even my pride and arrogance could no longer contain it. And what a storm it created. Strong enough to rip apart my life and leave me with almost nothing... but there was a glimpse of the Son in my storm.

Taking my eyes off of the storm and fixing them on the Son of God Himself left me with hope and the promise of peace. I look to the future at the sunset and see the way He is taking the darkness and using it to paint a picture that is so beautiful you don't want to take your eyes off of it for fear that you may miss out on even a moment. That sunset is not complete. He is still taking the elements of the storm and creating something that evolves as each minute passes. He has not yet revealed what that picture will look like at the height of His glory.

There are those that understand grace, and they delight in watching the Lord at work in someone's storm. There are those that don't understand grace, and they are scared by the storm. When we've brewed a massive storm, when it's out there for everyone to see, it changes a person - sometimes for the better, often for the worse. When we choose to allow Christ to take on our storm, He is faithful to not only rescue us from its danger, but to also create the sunset. Yet that sunset was not meant only for us to see, He created it so that the world might know of His grace and mercy.

Only Christ can take our storms and turn them into sunsets. The more elements we brew into our storms, the more elements He has to work with. The greater the storm, the more incredible the sunset.

So you have a choice. You can stare at my storm and see my sin. You can stare at my sunset and see the change. Or you can see both, and as your eyes slowly turn from my storm to my sunset with no clear line between them, be in awe of the way our Savior takes the darkest storms to create the most incredible sunset.

The Sunset and The Storm

As I sit on the wall of a church staring at the second crazy beautiful sunset I've experienced in a week, my mind begins to wander towards my Lord and Savior who created it all. My contemplation of the beauty of the sunset is interrupted behind me by the sound of thunder and I watch cloud to cloud lightning spider web across the darkening sky.

My mind is drawn towards the contrast. On one side, the beauty of God displayed in a fiery sunset. On the other, His power displayed in a storm. As I allow my eyes to flip back and forth between beauty and power, I begin to slow down and consider the barrier between the two. There is none. The power of the storm fades into the beauty of the sunset with no clear delineation between the end of one and the beginning of the other.

That's when I begin to realize that it takes the elements of the storm to create the beauty of the sunset. Without the storm, there is still a sunset. However, the clouds and moisture take what is normally a bright orange end to the day and tosses in reds, purples, blues, and hints of green in no way that an artist would consider on his own. An artist can't begin to recreate the dynamics of a scene like this and no camera can capture it in its entirety.

The colors aren't stable. They change as the sun continues to sink below the horizon until the sky itself appears to be on fire. There is still a sunset without the storm and there is still a storm without the sunset. It takes both to create the awe inspiring picture that makes me forget everything else and stare. There is the smell of rain and the sound of thunder. Look at the sunset and the occasional flash of lightning highlights the darker blues and purples. Look at the storm and the darkness is made brighter around the edges by the sunset.

There's more to it than just the realization of the blend of power and beauty. I begin to realize that the scene is really a picture of grace. You can stare at the beauty of a sunset and see that God is beautiful. You can be in awe of the power in a storm and know that God is strong. But when you see God's beauty with an understanding of His power, that's when you get the real beauty of grace. It's the blend of knowing how powerful He is and that you can't measure up to His standard that grace becomes beautiful to the point of awe struck silence.

It inspires the tear that is simultaneously born from the shame of guilt and joy of redemption. It's the way God overwhelms you with how awesome He truly is. That's when everything else begins to lose significance, gratitude begins to take over, and real change starts to happen in your heart. That's what grace that is greater than all my sin does when you finally see that is more than just words in a book.