Who's the Boss?

"It’s important to remember that we may be wrong even though life is good."

We live in a time when we resent being told what we should and shouldn't do, even when the one doing the telling is the sovereign God of the universe. We need to get over that!

Jesus and the Cross: The Only Way to "Winning"

In a world where a celebrity actor, obviously mired in addiction and the grandiosity it creates, says he's "winning" and finds people gullible enough to believe him, following Jesus is a radical way of life.

Following Jesus entails repentance, humility, honest self-evaluation, and sacrifice.

It also entails acknowledging the reality that we can't master sin, death, or our impulses toward self-destruction on our own.

We need Jesus Christ.

We need the way of the cross, which means letting Christ crucify our old sinful, death-filled ways so that He can replace them with the life He gives to all who repent and believe in Him.

That's the only way to resurrection and hope in this life. To "win" at life, we must first "lose" our delusions and denial.

Jesus puts it this way: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it" (Luke 9:23-24).

Julie Ackerman Link has some great thoughts on this topic, well worth taking the few minutes required to read it and the passage of Scripture on which it's based.

Here is the link to Link's piece.

Here's a great song by one of my favorite artists and satirists, Steve Taylor. It's called Jesus is for Losers. I aspire to be a "loser" who daily submits to the gracious reconstruction of my whole being Jesus offers, losing the death, the sin, and the futility that sticks to a life in which we pretend to be number one and in control. Get a clue, Charlie; get a life; grab hold of Christ!



Here are the lyrics:
If I was driven
Driven ahead by some noble ideal
Who took the wheel?

If I was given
Given a glimpse of some glorious road
When was it sold?

So caught up in the chase
I keep forgetting my place

Just as I am
I am stiff-necked and proud
Jesus is for losers
Why do I still play to the crowd?

Just as I am
Pass the compass, please
Jesus is for losers
I'm off about a hundred degrees

If I was groping
Groping around for some ladder to fame
I am ashamed

If I was hoping
Hoping respect would make a sturdy footstool
I am a fool

Bone-weary every climb
Blindsided every time

Just as I am
I am needy and dry
Jesus is for losers
The self-made need not apply

Just as I am
In a desert crawl
Lord, I'm so thirsty
Take me to the waterfall

And if you're certain
Certain your life is some cosmic mistake
Why do you shake?

And if you're certain
Certain that faith is some know-nothing mask
Why do you still ask?

They don't grade here on the curve
We both know what we deserve

Just as you are
Just a wretch like me
Jesus is for losers
Grace from the blood of a tree

Just as we are
At a total loss
Jesus is for losers
Broken at the foot of the cross

Just as I am
Pass the compass, please
Jesus is for losers
I'm off about a hundred degrees

Just as I am
In a desert crawl
Lord, I'm so thirsty
Take me to the waterfall

Maybe the most important thing you'll read today...

...is here.

"Called from..."

Yesterday's installment from Our Daily Bread makes a great point: God not only calls us to things; God also calls us away from things.

And the things that God calls us away from can be far more frightening than the things that God calls us to. After all, rightly and wrongly, we may derive security and even fulfillment from the things God calls us to leave behind.

But God wants us to rely only on Him for security, fulfillment, and life, and to thereby learn from the Author of life what it means to truly live. That's a hard thing to learn, something I seem to need to be retaught all the time. But it's a good thing to learn.

Matching the Walk with the Talk

From today's devotion by Julie Ackerman Link in Our Daily Bread: 

I’d rather see a Christian
Than to hear one merely talk;
I’d rather see his actions
And behold his daily walk. —Herrell

God, forgive me for all the ways in which I have failed to live a life consistent with the faith I profess. Help me to walk like a Christian and not just talk like one. In Jesus' Name. AMEN

You'll want to read the entire devotion and the passage on which it's based, Titus 3:1-8.

UPDATE: From Stanley Hauerwas' commentary on Matthew, chapter 3:

It is not what the Pharisees and Sadducees say that John [the Baptizer] and Jesus condemn; but rather it is the inconsistency between their lives and what they commend. (emphasis mine)

"Even when God’s ways are inexplicable, His love is reliable."

See here.

Trusting in Christ Alone is Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing

Here. Really good!

Check out Matthew 15:7-20:
[Jesus said:]

⁷You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said: ⁸‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; ⁹in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’”

¹⁰Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: ¹¹it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” ¹²Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” ¹³He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. ¹⁴Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” ¹⁵But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” ¹⁶Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? ¹⁷Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? ¹⁸But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. ¹⁹For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. ²⁰These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”

Vacations?

Taking a vacation from God is like taking a vacation from oxygen or food. Check this out.