Tag Archives: Jesus Christ

Eggshells and Jesus

eggshell

I was having lunch with a friend a few days ago.

A strong friend.  And a friend who appears strong, even in the face of heartbreak and adversity.

This friend is going through a VERY hard time, and I cannot imagine the pressures and pulls from all different directions.  Life is tough, and just because we claim Grace and Christianity, doesn’t mean we’re living a life that allows us to always frolic through a field of daisies.  Jesus promised that “in this life you will face trails of many kinds” (John 16:33).  My friend has been living that statement out for a few years now.

But this day was different.  I was having lunch with a fragile friend.  A friend, whom I feared had an exterior that was ready to crack at any moment, and if I asked one more question…that shell might just crackle and crumble.

Those moments aren’t easy for me, the fixer.  Me, the man.  Me, the friend.  Me, the faith talker.  I want everything to be alright, and I want to play a part in it all working out.  But in my friend’s eyes, there was sadness and tiredness and loneliness.

Have you ever been there?  Ever felt like an eggshell?

I was at the grocery store with some Deaf teenagers the other day and one of the items I was purchasing happened to be a carton of eggs.  As I opened the carton and moved each individual egg, I asked if they knew what I was doing.  I was pleasantly surprised, “Checking to make sure they aren’t cracked or broken“.  That’s exactly what I was doing.

Have you ever felt like that?  Strong AND fragile?  An eggshell holds it all together, protects everything inside, but one foul shake of the carton or one harsh drop or one little push with your finger and CRACK…it spills its guts and there’s a big, sticky mess to clean up.

Isaiah 41:14 says, “Don’t be afraid. Feel like a fragile insect, Israel? I’ll help you. I, God, want to reassure you. The God who buys you back, The Holy of Israel.”

Hebrews 4:14-16 says,“Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.”

Nehemiah 4:13-14, “So I stationed armed guards at the most vulnerable places of the wall and assigned people by families with their swords, lances, and bows. After looking things over I stood up and spoke to the nobles, officials, and everyone else: “Don’t be afraid of them. Put your minds on the Master, great and awesome, and then fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.”

So, you’re feeling tired, worn-out, fragile, ready to crack and crumble.  What do you do?

  • Focus on Jesus.  The Author (Creator) and Perfecter of our Faith.
  • Remember that God knows we are fragile and wants to reassure us, and buy us back.
  • Recognize that Jesus Christ is 100% familiar with our weakness and pain.  He experienced it all as fully human on the Cross.
  • And finally, recognize where your weak (vulnerable) places are and guard yourself, recognizing that you cannot do it alone.  Enlist the help of your family (those closest to you, whom you can trust) and fight with everything God gives you.

Rest today in the knowledge that God is on your side and “He, who began a good work in you, will be faithful to complete it.” (Philippians 1:6)

ATTIC,

Steve

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It’s Okay to Quit

jasons-law

I learned this lesson from my buddy Bob Goff.

He quits something every Thursday.

It might be an appointment.  It might be a job or a project or black coffee or whoknowswhat, but Bob quits something every Thursday.

The past two weeks, I quit this site.

Not because I loathe the site or suddenly started to dislike writing or stopped caring for our growing number of followers/readers.  I just had to quit.

Life gets busy.  It gets crazy, hurried, and seems more demanding every day.  So I quit.  I knew I’d come back, but between out-of-town family being in-town, a contract job, my pastoral duties, a nine-month-old, a marriage, and just the in-and-outs of everyday life, I had to say to myself, “Self, SLOW DOWN!  Chill out dude!”

It’s okay to quit.  It’s okay to take a break.  It’s okay to say “no”.

Give yourself the grace to rest.  Do it often.  Regularly and spontaneously.

You only get one shot at this life, so live it to the fullest.

Let’s meet up here for coffee Monday morning, okay?

ATTIC,

Steve

Scriptures on “rest”:

  • By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Genesis 2:2
  • I’ll refresh tired bodies; I’ll restore tired souls. Jeremiah 31:25
  • The apostles then rendezvoused with Jesus and reported on all that they had done and taught. Jesus said, “Come off by yourselves; let’s take a break and get a little rest.” For there was constant coming and going. They didn’t even have time to eat. Mark 6:30-31
  • I heard a voice out of Heaven, “Write this: Blessed are those who die in the Master from now on; how blessed to die that way!” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “and blessed rest from their hard, hard work. None of what they’ve done is wasted; God blesses them for it all in the end.” Revelation 14:13

 

Cheap Grace

staircase

My Uncle called me yesterday to say “thanks” for the post on “Why Messy Grace?”.  It made my day.  Each of your comments are precious to me and I treasure the dialogue that this platform gives us, but hearing “thanks” from a family member–someone I know personally and admire–is just a bit sweeter.

During our conversation, we talked about how the older we get, the more we realize different things that really matter in life.  I was holding the phone, talking to a guy who tragically lost his wife, the love of his life, the mother of his two young sons.  A guy who appears to not only be surviving, but THRIVING.  That’s a different kind of grace, the grace to hold on.   It is still messy…and wonderful…and unique…and beautiful.

Later in our chat, we got on the topic of “Cheap Grace” and how so many people think that my non-conservative theological bent cheapens the work that Jesus Christ did on the Cross.  Folks who haven’t had the same realization that Uncle Pete and I have had.  Folks who still think that unless they beat themselves up and judge and criticize everyone else when failure happens, they aren’t living for the “high calling”.  Folks who think that perfection is attainable and that it’s the goal.

Newsflash: perfection is NOT attainable and is NOT the goal.

Regarding “Cheap Grace”, my view is just the opposite!  I think that if we do not take hold of grace every single time we mess up, it is then that we cheapen His work on the Cross.  Jesus Christ didn’t die so that we could reach perfection on this side of eternity.  He died the death of a criminal.  Almighty God humbled Himself to human form and was tortured and ripped apart for one reason: reconciliation.  His ultimate goal was re-connecting with the children He is so passionately in love with.  He died so that every single time we fail…AND WE WILL FAIL…that we can simply say the name “Jesus” and He will save us.  He saves us from our sins, our anguish, anxiety, fears, hurts, and every struggle that we’ll ever face.  And that salvation never runs out.  Ever.

It doesn’t mean that we don’t try.  We should try our best, every moment of every day.  But we will never ALWAYS succeed at this walk toward Christ.  There are potholes, hairpin turns, and traffic jams along the way.  But don’t worry about those things–the only step Christ Jesus wants you to be concerned with right now is the one step that He has placed before you today.

When we focus more on goodness than grace, we get it all wrong.  It’s not about our goodness.  There is no one good.  It is all about His grace.

The Bible is clear that where sin abounds, grace abounds even more.

His grace wasn’t cheap, and I don’t want to ignore it by trying to clean myself up.

Remember: the only step Christ Jesus wants you to be concerned with right now is the one step that He has placed before you today. And that is a step toward His wonderful, beautiful, messy grace.

ATTIC,

Steve

Romans 5

6-8Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him. 9-11Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!

The Death-Dealing Sin, the Life-Giving Gift

12-14You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma we’re in— first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either sin or death. That sin disturbed relations with God in everything and everyone, but the extent of the disturbance was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses. So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated the landscape from Adam to Moses. Even those who didn’t sin precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One who will get us out of it. 15-17Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin. If one man’s sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God’s gift poured through one man, Jesus Christ, will do! There’s no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man’s wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?

18-19Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right.

20-21All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.

The Sound of Many Waters

Being an interpreter definitely has perks from time-to-time.  This is one of those times.

I’m in the middle of The Great Smoky Mountains National Park for a week.

Day-long hikes, wildlife, reconnecting with nature, jumping off rocks into insanely cold water, climbing to waterfalls at sunrise.  I love it!

Today was especially special (Am I allowed to say that?  “especially special?”…sorry…rambling).

A few of us adventuresome folks woke up an hour early, met at 6:30am (Eastern time), and headed to some waterfalls we hadn’t been to.  The hike was strenuous, but only about 25 minutes and when we arrived, I felt like I was in Eden.  High, broad, beautiful waterfall, surrounded by beautiful rock facings all around, tucked away in a cove, and trees draping the landscape.

I heard God walking there.

Mike, the leader of the group (the guy is 36 but looks 23 and is FULL of energy) is an ecologist but also a Christian (he attends Andy Stanley’s church in Georgia).  We’ve become fast friends, and I plan to have him on The ATTIC Talk Radio sometime soon to talk about connecting God with nature AND connecting God with Science.  The two belong together.  ANYWAYS–Mike is super cool, and while I was sitting on this massive rock, meditating, I look up and see Mike, shirtless, BEHIND THE WATERFALL! Well my gosh, I had to join him!  (Not because he was shirtless, you weirdos…but because WHO GETS TO CLIMB BEHIND A WATERFALL?!)

I was in hiking clothes, not swimming clothes, but I had to be there.  It was calling me.  I could feel it.  So the shirt came off, and I was up there in a matter of minutes.  As I stood behind, under, beneath, and IN the water (how’s that for prepositional usage?), I was a bit overwhelmed.  The sheer force of that water beating down on my head and neck was intense. I was taken back to the song we sang at Invasion, that included the line “…the sound of many waters“.  I was standing under the main waterfall, but I counted thirteen smaller falls/pools, each with a distinct sound.

I exited, stood in the pool below, and was taking in all the majesty of this place. 

As I gazed upward, toward the top of the falls, I heard my Abba say, “This is what I am constantly doing with your sin.”

How awesome is that?  To realize that our sins are CONSTANTLY being forgiven.  Forgiveness is continually being poured out from the veins of Jesus Christ over those who love Him.

His grace is amazing, powerful, and ever-flowing.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.” 2 Cor. 12:9

GOD LOVES TEENAGERS!