Simple.

We can't fight for the last word, just what's right.

If our King suffered, so shall we. We will suffer while watching children die on the altar selfishness. We'll suffer while watching friends run into folly. We'll suffer while the world around us runs from the one Person that can save it. Our God was aquatinted with grief, so too shall we be.

A Moment to Write

My professor, Dr. Greenham, spoke well against reincarnation. He said, “We are made to go on.”

Lewis says something similar. Something of how time is an odd thing and that because we view time as odd that this points to our not being made for the temporal but the eternal. That our terms of how, “Time has flown,” or how, “Time has slowed down to a crawl,” are hints at our eternality. We are not made for reflection or the entropy of reliving parts of life, no, we’re made to go on. Now and now and now, we’re made to go on and on and on, but never made to go back to how things once were. God himself will not return us to the Garden, he, rather, will create a city for our dwelling. Lewis does well to say, “Further up and further in.” For indeed this is what we are created for.

Something of this is freeing. Nostalgia seems such a happy place until compared to reality, then we spiral into the hope of how things were, never thinking of how things are let alone how things will be. But if creation longs to be made new (Rom 8) then ought’n we too? Should we not long for the consummation of all things in the enveloping arms of Christ the King? Yet here Lewis’ voice plays in my ears once more, “News from a country you’ve never visited… echoes of a tune you’ve not heard… the scent of a flower I’ve never smelled.” Indeed our longing for completion is evident in our nostalgia, but we cannot go backward to gain it, we must go on.

I’m finding more and more that I truly only know two things, that I am a great sinner and Jesus is a greater Savior (as Newton would say it). My feelings betray me. My heart is deceitful. My mind is a labyrinth of these's and those's, this’s and that’s. Even reality holds little to know, because I’m certain that just behind it’s frail curtain a war rages - a war of cherubim and seraphim fighting devils and demons - of light defeating darkness for the Dawn has come. There is comfort in seeing my ignorance.

Andrew Peterson has a song that has been capturing me, “Carry the Fire.” He sings, “We dream at night of city descending with the Son in the middle and a peace unending… Where joy writes the song and the innocent sing them…” The more I learn, the more those same two things are all I know. In some form or fashion all things are tied to the sinfulness of my soul and Christ’s redemption.

We'll Remember

“When shadows fall on us we will not fear we will remember.”

We’ll remember the call; we’ll remember the light at the end of our dark night. We’ll remember the cross; we’ll remember the resurrection and our subsequent salvation. We’ll remember the cost; we’ll remember blood, the sweat, the tears, we’ll remember our fear now relieved.

We’ll remember the end of death and the first breath of life; we’ll remember the beginning of our sanctification and the end of our damnation; we’ll remember the beginning of all of forever of the life we’ll live with God; we’ll remember the first glimpses of the glory of the King who saved us and bought us with himself – for himself.

We’ll remember the God who did not delay but sent his own Son to die for us because he loved us with a great love – so great that it spelled then end of the end and the death of the grave. We’ll remember that our help comes from the LORD the maker of heaven and hell and all that is between them.

We’ll remember that neither death nor life nor things present nor things to come, nor angels, demons, heaven, hell, Satan himself and all the hosts of the man cannot separate us from the love of our God!

We’ll remember that all we are is nothing apart from him our everything. We’ll remember that we have been bought with a price and that it’s no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us. We’ll remember each breath is grace and each second is a second chance, that each life encountered is a life to be spoken into, that each life is a soul and each soul is eternal and each eternity can be impacted for the King by his poor ambassadors.

We’ll remember the cost of the cross and the call of the King. We’ll remember each step is faith and all faith is God’s. We’ll remember that what we deserve we do not get and what we do not get is what we deserve. We’ll remember that the closest to hell we’ll ever get is this life – this life with all its raindrops and smiles, all its baby laughter and nephew hugs, all is kisses of spouses and providences of God. We’ll remember the beginning, middle and end of all of everything in our small little lives is the cross of Christ, the empty tomb, and the love of God for us.

A Mission

What’s it like to not see? To be blind.

Most of us, physically speaking, have no concept or barring on what it’d be like to be blind. We open our eyes in the morning and go about our day, with no realization of what it could be like to not see the sun, the clouds, or the birds who chirp in the trees.

Spiritual, however, we all know what it’s like to not see.

We all once, there was a time, we can remember it now, vivid for some, distant for others, but the memory is there and for some it is bitter; we all know what it’s like to not know Jesus as Savior.

To be blind to the beautifully impactful truth that Christ is King and the old us is not the current us or will it be the new us. That, my friends, is a heartbreak thing.

Yet, some of us now know what it is to see.

To wake up and see the vibrant reality of Jesus being, for now and always, the Lord of our lives, the Conqueror of our graves, and the Redeemer desperately needed.

To know there is a reigning victorious King, and to know him like a brother.

Both of these, though vastly different are stark realities.

There are the blind and there is the seeing in every day of life. We converse with them; we shake their hands.

Yet to both, the Gospel, the necessary truth of Jesus being Lord is the communiqué what is most beautiful.

And this, I believe, is the great dilemma of the Christian life: how do we talk about Jesus as what is most desperately needed by all people, both blind and seeing?

It’s a question which every believer must wrestle with, how do I do this, this thing called mission?

Because we can't, as I saw some recently do, leave a tract as our tip and call that 'mission.' That's not mission, it's mean. But we also can't over spiritualize everything because then your still just a jerk...

There's a balance, like there is in most things.

Too much is terrible, not enough is damning (just as much as too much); the middle, the middle however is where we, I would say, legitimately care for people (all of them) and after getting to know them for who they are, then we talk about Jesus. 

Essentials

Broken and dirty,
Bare and laid out,
Everything inside us is filthy and tainted by the profusion of our sinful hearts.
We’re unable and dispassionate,
Shattered by the fall we need you.

We need you to be Creator,
To create new hearts within us;
We need you to Promise,
To covenant with us;
We need you to be Listener,
To hear the cries of our affliction;
We need you to be Priest,
To perform our religion;
We need you to be King,
To reign in our hearts;
We need you to be Prophet,
To declare your Truth;
We need you to be the God-Man,
To bear our penalty;
We need you to be crucified,
To bear your wrath;
We need you to live,
To be our intercessor;
We need you to be Avenger,
To conquer our enemies;
We need you to be Warrior,
To slay our adversaries,
We need you to be our God;
This is what we will need forever and always.

More than self-help, self-awareness, self-efficacy, self-pity, self-confidence, self-glory, or any other hyphenated self-word you can toss out,
We need God to be God.

Ripped from the Journal: Crying Stones

"I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out." Luke 19:40

Their very redemption was at hand. The stones could feel their purpose riding by; knowing their groaning had been heard by their maker & they were soon to be remade. Renewal from corruption; freedom from sins; the curse turned upon it's head and the world to be right once more.

It is the same for those who've heard their Master's call. The once stone hearts have become living flesh and are singing the glories of their King. The very stones are crying out in adoration to the Redeemer.

Friday's Ripped from the Journal: The Shrewd Manager (huh?)

The parable of the dishonest manager or the shrewd manager in Luke 16:1-13 is a conundrum to me. I don’t exactly know what to take from it. I suppose the unrighteous money does not mean unrighteously gained money but rather money which is not set apart for the work of the ministry – but this I only suppose.

Indeed as believers we are to be as cunning as serpents and as innocent as doves. We must be on constant guard for the coming of our King, but until then making friends with the world so that some might be saved.

This would make more since to me. To be in the world building friendships -- genuine friendships – with co-workers, in all being intentional with how we speak and what we speak about. Being careful to not be persuaded of the beauty of loveless trinkets. Being intoxicated by our King of Glory who’s redeemed us by the death of His Son.