It’s all about Jesus. Really, it is. A few recent best-selling Christian books have been telling people, “It’s not about you.” That’s true actually. We don’t like to hear that. But it’s true. If all of history isn’t about me or you, then what is it about?

Jesus.

“He said to them, ‘How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (Luke 24:25-27 NIV).

The Old Testament is all about Jesus. The New Testament is all about Jesus. I also believe that all of history is about Jesus. (I like to think of history as HIS story.) And so I also believe that the story of your family, the story of your church, the story of YOU, is all about Jesus.

Jesus should be on our lips, our minds and our hearts. He should be a part of all we say, do, think, and plan. But not just a part. He should be the basis for all that we do.

Every now and then a new Christian book or Christian teacher takes the churches by storm. (Just a few names I've observed: C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, Hal Lindsey, Billy Graham, Max Lucado, Henry Blackaby, Bruce Wilkinson, John Eldredge, Joel Osteen, Rick Warren) When one of these authors gets influential we hear Christians saying their name a lot or quoting their books. What a certain author thinks will be cited in committee meetings and Sunday School classes. There’s nothing wrong with learning from another Christian or quoting an author but every time it happens, I wonder if we shouldn’t be more influenced by Jesus. We should be referring to Jesus, saying his name, talking about what he would think and quoting him.

How can we do that more? I think it happens not only by loving him, but by admiring him, respecting him, and thinking that he is the smartest, most wonderful person you’ve ever known.

“Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!” (Romans 5:7-9).

What a wonderful savior! My prayer for you is that your life would be all about Jesus. May all that you do, say and live point to and glorify our Savior.

“To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen” (Jude 24-25).

The matriarch of a prominent San Antonio family was murdered last week. Yesterday at her funeral, her son offered to pay for the defense of her killer. I heard him interviewed on the local talk radio station yesterday afternoon and it was incredible. Their lawyers have told him he can't do that because of "conflict of interest", but he explained his reasoning. He said that he was following Jesus' teachings: loving his enemies, forgiving others, and doing unto the "least of these" as he would to Jesus. The radio host said, "Jesus is my Lord and Savior too, but all I would want is 5 minutes alone with the guy." "Yeah," Mr. Barrios said, "but you'd be doing it to Jesus."

It was incredible.

Viola Barrios' Family Offers To Pay Legal Fees For Her Accused Killer

Family and friends said their final goodbyes to Viola Barrios, owner of the famed Los Barrios Restaurant. Those attending her emotional funeral witnessed an amazing act of forgiveness.

Not only are the Barrios' forgiving the family who's son is charged with Viola's murder, they're now helping the Estrada's defend their son by offering to pay for his legal fees.

"The Estradas can't afford it, but the Barrios family can," Louis explained. "And we are asking Roy, Junior and Bobby, to defend Joey Estrada, Jr.

One of the attorneys Barrios wanted to defend Estrada said he cannot represent the teen.

"It would be a conflict of interest. It would be awkward. If Estrada ended up getting the death penalty, some would question whether the Barrios paid a lawyer to ensure that happened," said Roy Barrera, Sr., a lawyer.

Louis Barrios remembered his mother Viola in a tearful goodbye at her funeral Monday.

"My mother died Wednesday night/Thursday morning, and then I came to the conclusion that the person that loved me the most is gone. I cried like a baby," said Louis Barrios.

Although his heart was filled with sadness, the people who packed church soon found out it still had enough room for forgiveness.

"The Estrada family will always be a part of our family," Louis said.

Louis Barrios said the court fees to defend Joey Estrada, Jr. are expected to be more than $100,000.
Joey Estrada, Jr. is still in jail on a $1-million bond.

The 18-year-old was arrested Friday. He lived next door to barrios.

A court date for Estrada has not been set.

Here's a personal account from someone who went to the funeral.

What spoke to me, both literally and figuratively, was Louis Barrios, son of Viola. He spoke with deep passion and conviction in his faith in Christ-That is where the victory comes in...

Yesterday he went next door, to the home of Joey Estrada, his mother's murderer.

He went to extend a hand of forgiveness and prayer

But, then he went even further...he begged us through tears, to "please pray for Joey and his family. He didn't know what he was doing"

Read this for more details. It's an incredible story.

But Monday afternoon, Bobby Barrera said he and his brother had declined to take the case, deciding it would be a conflict of interest because of their relationship to Viola Barrios and her family.

Viola Barrios, 76, founder of Los Barrios Mexican Restaurant in 1979 and La Hacienda de los Barrios in 2004, was slain last week in her Northwest Side home. Her badly burned body, with “potential trauma” to her head, according to an arrest affidavit, was found in her bedroom, a trail of accelerant from her bed to the hallway.

On Friday, Estrada, a former athlete on Churchill's track team who grew up next door to Barrios, was charged with her slaying.

While Estrada remained jailed Monday on a $1 million bond, his parents attended the funeral of their son's alleged victim. Afterward, Louis Barrios and his sister Diana Barrios Trevino embraced Joe and Dorothy Estrada and invited them to sit with the Barrios family at the graveside service at San Fernando Cemetery.

There, beneath a bright morning sun, the siblings wrapped their arms around the weeping Estradas, holding their hands as Barrios' coffin was lowered.

“The Barrios family lost our mother. The Estrada family lost their son,” Louis Barrios said. “These were my mother's neighbors, my mother's friends. When they moved in next door six years ago, she greeted them with tamales. ... We need each other, we're united, we forgive him.” Forgiveness — and celebration of Barrios' life — were the recurrent themes during the services.


Because she was so quick to forgive, Louis Barrios told Bobby Barrera that the family does not want Estrada to face the death penalty, as Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed suggested last week, saying at a Friday news conference that she would like to “string” up the suspect herself.

“As he put it, ‘I know it would be my mother's desire that this boy not be put to death,'” Barrera said.

On Monday, those who attended Viola Barrios' funeral instead focused on her life and the generous offer made by her son, however short-lived it was.

Speaking of 19th-century Russian author Leo Tolstoy, who gave his money to the poor, Mayor Phil Hardberger said, “It was truly an amazing, Tolstoyan gesture.”

“It shows something of the heart of our city, but it comes through the heart of her family, her teaching and her spirit,” he said.

Yolanda Arellano, executive director of the San Antonio Restaurant Association, who had earlier referred the matriarch's “love for her children, God and country,” said she was not surprised at Louis Barrios' gesture toward the Estrada family.

“He was his mother's son. She always had a big heart,” Arellano said.

I must say again that hearing Louis Barrios cite scripture about love and forgiveness in the face of his mother's murder was incredible thing.

From the Anchoress . . .

This reminds me of a story here on Long Island, where a teenager who was goofing around, stupidly, threw a frozen turkey at a moving car and nearly destroyed a woman’s face, and how that turned out:

Surgeons, who rebuilt her face using metal plates and screws, said the impact might have caused lasting brain damage. But prosecutors say that Ms. Ruvolo’s recovery has been remarkable and that she is once again back at work and living on her own.

Accompanied by several friends and relatives, Ms. Ruvolo, a 44-year-old office manager, came to court wearing a black pantsuit and a gold cross on a chain for her first face-to-face meeting with Mr. Cushing.

Stopping to speak to her on his way out of the courtroom, Mr. Cushing choked on an apology and began to cry. For an intensely emotional few minutes, Ms. Ruvolo alternately embraced him tightly, stroked his face and patted his back as he sobbed uncontrollably.

Many of the two dozen people in court - prosecutors, court officers and reporters - choked back tears.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” Mr. Cushing said over and over again. “I didn’t mean it.” Most of their exchange was whispered, but at one point Ms. Ruvolo’s advice to him was just barely audible.

“It’s O.K., it’s O.K.,” she said. “I just want you to make your life the best it can be.”

And we saw this sort of heroic forgiveness among the Amish after their children were slaughtered.

I was at Adoration earlier today and wondering about saints and heroes, and whether it is “easier” sometimes to be a “hero” when things are clearly one or the other - good or bad, black or white - than when things are ambiguous and blurred as so much is, in our age. And I wondered too whether it’s easier to be merciful, when a hurt against you is huge and very, very clear, when it is a “hurt” that you know is going to be with you every day for the rest of your life…maybe when it’s that crystaline - so obvious that you don’t need Oprah or Dr. Phil to tell you you’ve been hurt - you have to forgive or you can’t move on, either. Maybe if you can’t forgive . . . you kill your own spirit.

I hope I never have to find that out for sure.

Forgiveness is beautiful . . .

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

- Colossians 3:12-17

“God helps those who help themselves.” Quick, what book does that come from? Give up? It’s not in the Bible. But you can find it in “Poor Richards Almanac” (1757) by Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin is not the only one who said something like that. There are various older writings in English literature where the sentiment can be found, but it is not in the Bible. If you believe that the Bible is your authority for faith and life, that may bring you some relief…or puzzlement. Many of us have been taught this all of our lives.

The Bible actually teaches something quite different. “He who trusts in himself is a fool...” (Proverbs 28:26). We are totally dependent on God for every breath. (Acts 17:25) In fact, the Bible tells us that “every perfect gift comes from above” (James 1:17). Yet, we tell people “God helps those who help themselves!” What is that supposed to mean anyway?

To some it means “Stop whining about your situation and go do something about it.” That can be a necessary corrective. God certainly doesn’t intend for us to sit around and do nothing. We do have responsibilities as humans to work hard and do right. “We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat.’ We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat. And as for you, brothers, never tire of doing what is right” (2 Thessalonians 3:7-13).

However, some people have used this saying as an excuse not to help others. This is contrary to Scripture. The Bible commands us quite clearly to help others. “If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered” (Proverbs 21:13).

The biggest problem with this saying is that God does not command us to “help ourselves”. We need God’s help. A man drowning cannot "pull himself out" with his own hand. “Do I have any power to help myself, now that success has been driven from me?” (Job 6:13) God helps the helpless! "For you have been a defense for the helpless, a defense for the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat..." (Isaiah 25:4). We NEED rescuing. Especially from our sins! Romans 5:6 tells us, "For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly." God helps those who can’t help themselves, and I’m so thankful for that.

No one likes to admit they have a problem. What if what you thought was true was really just a dream-world of your own making? (a la "Matrix") Would you want to know you were asleep? What if you were sleeping in fire? Reality might be killing us, yet many of us would rather dream, especially if the dream is better than reality.

The people in Jeremiah’s day were dreaming too. Day after day they went on sinning, not heeding cries to wake up! “My people are fools; they do not know me. They are senseless children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil; they know not how to do good.” (Jeremiah 4:22). We can get so caught up in destructive behavior that we have convinced ourselves that there is no problem. “All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the LORD” (Proverbs 16:2). What if you were on a destructive path and didn’t know it?

There are all kinds of things we do. We have idols, desires and addictions. We have patterns of sinful behavior like anger, deceitfulness, selfishness and gossip. We “have eyes but do not see. We have ears but do not hear” (Jeremiah 5:21). We become so captivated by the idols of our own making that we begin to act like them. We get up every day, and go to work. We sit down in front of a square box at night. And God gets ignored. They were as deaf and blind as the statues they worshipped.

In Jeremiah’s day the leaders were saying “Peace, peace” when there was no peace. (6:14). We would rather listen to false good news, then true bad news.
So if all our ways seem innocent how do we know we need to turn around?

First, look for the truth. “Ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls” (Jeremiah 6:16). We have to want what is better enough to change the path we are on. Looking at our own lives honestly can be tough. It hurts to admit that we have a problem, whether it’s a sin, or an addiction, or a crumbling home life. But we can’t get better until we acknowledge that we need help.

Second, listen to the truth. “I appointed watchmen over you” (Jeremiah 6:17-18). It’s easy to surround ourselves with people who tell us only what we want to hear. But a person,who really cares will tell you the truth EVEN if it means you’ll be mad at them! “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses” (Proverbs 27:6). Listen to the people who care about you. Don’t assume that just because you don’t like the message, that your friend has turned their back on you. Perhaps he is the one who loves you enough to tell you the truth.

And finally, acknowledge reality. It may be painful, but it’s the first step, before healing can begin. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins…” (I John 1:9).

The above title was the exact news headline on the yahoo home page. And I thought to myself, "Why is it news that Bob Dole remembers eating a salad? What was so special about it? Where was he that he made a speech and remembered a salad he had eaten?"

Turns out, the headline meant something different. Funny how, out of context, our brains don't always understand things the way they're meant.

Remember that when you overhear someone talking and are attempted to assign meaning to what they said, and then pass it along. You may have heard the words accurately, but that doesn't mean you caught the right meaning.

Gossip kills.

It is increasingly obvious that people are prepared to tolerate Christianity up until the point that it begins to define its terms.
-- C.J. Mahaney, in his sermon "Cross-Centered Worship"

I spoke a bit about this last night at Element, about Jesus as the great divider. What does it mean when Jesus says "I have not come to bring peace, but a sword"?

I was connecting the Exodus event to the cross of Christ -- in the way that it literally and historically marks the intersection of God's wrath and his mercy, his judgment on sin and his redeeming his children from it -- and it was important, I think, to also connect then the Lord's telling Moses and the children of Israel to remember this event (as a sign on their right arm and between their eyes) with our need to remember the cross of Christ in the same way.

Mere days after this enormous demonstration of God's awesome power, his proof that he is mighty to save, the children of Israel were complaining about food. This is why I think we need the Gospel every day. Because we are constantly, naturally, idolatrously choosing to forget the cross and look to God in a sort of "What have you done for me lately?" sort of attitude.

Modern sermons and teaching that do not center or focus on the cross only reinforce this for us. Without meaning to, the church itself can support our error of judging God's faithfulness to us based on our present circumstances, rather than on the great love he has shown to us in the past. Which is why we must always bring the glory of that past movement into our present worship and obedience. That's the need for the call to a cross-centered life.

When John the Baptist was languishing in prison, awaiting execution, perhaps he began to have doubts. At one time he was sure his cousin was the messiah, the king of the kingdom of God. But it's only natural that sitting in jail with death hanging over his head could have driven him to make doubly sure. He sent a message to Jesus asking if he was indeed "the one."
Jesus' response was peculiar, but heavy in its implications. It began thusly:

The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.

I can imagine John then thinking, "Well, awesome. But I'm in jail."
The second part of Jesus' reply message was not "As such, we are forming a posse, and we're coming to bust you out of prison." No, instead he said:

Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.

What does that mean? Why send that to John?
I think it is because Jesus obviously knew John was going to his death, and obviously Jesus did not mean to work to prevent that, but he nevertheless wanted to reaffirm that the call to follow Jesus is the call to die. Following Jesus means renouncing comfort, safety, and happiness in circumstances as the prime virtue of life.

That is the dividing line for many. That is the point of departure for us whenever we are tempted to think, based on discomfort or grief or stress, that God has forsaken us (something he promised he would never do). We are like the wayward children of Israel in the Exodus desert, faithful one moment, doubting like forgetful morons the next.

What does it mean to remember the cross of Christ as a sign upon our right hand, between our eyes, and in our mouth? It means that Jesus is our way, Jesus is our truth, and Jesus is our life, and when the way, the truth, and the life heads toward crucifixion, we don't part ways. We remember. We commemorate. We look to the cross like a pillar of cloud by day and to the empty tomb like a pillar of fire by night, the signs to follow. Where the world walks the wide path away from the point at which Christ defines his terms, the disciple continues on the narrow path into the way of the cross.

(Cross-posted at Gospel-Driven Church)

O Jesus meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being extolled, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being honored, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being praised, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred to others, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being approved, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being despised, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of suffering rebukes, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being calumniated, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being ridiculed, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being wronged, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being suspected, Deliver me, Jesus.

That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That in the opinion of the world, others may increase, and I may decrease,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and I set aside,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I unnoticed,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be preferred to me in everything,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may become holier than I, provided that I become as holy as I should,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

Written by Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val.

[Hat Tip: Kingdom People]

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
- Isaiah 40:1-5

A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God."

Regarding this passage, Matthew Henry wrote:

When eastern princes marched through desert countries, ways were prepared for them, and hinderances removed. And may the Lord prepare our hearts by the teaching of his word and the convictions of his Spirit, that high and proud thoughts may be brought down, good desires planted, crooked and rugged tempers made straight and softened, and every hinderance removed, that we may be ready for his will on earth, and prepared for his heavenly kingdom.

This expresses my deep hope, both for myself, for my family, for my church and for those I am privileged to teach, that we will daily "prepare the way for the Lord".

Yet often the road is not clear. My heart is not smooth ground for the Spirit to move, unhindered.

I'm reminded - and this is the way my mind works early on Sunday mornings, I guess - of those chase scenes we've seen a hundred times in movies. Not car chases, but the on-foot kind. You know the ones I'm talking about: as the person being chased is running, he or she keeps grabbing random objects (trashcans, boxes of stuff, etc) and throwing them in the way of the chaser.

In the movie Sandlot, there is a fabulous on-foot chase scene, featuring Bennie "the jet" Rodriguez and a huge saint bernard named Hercules. Bennie has retrieved a Babe Ruth autographed baseball from Hercules' backyard collection, and Hercules wants it back! One segment of the chase scene has Bennie knocking over trashcans in Hercules' way as he runs for his life.

The funny thing about that scene is that, ultimately, Hercules chases Bennie back to the sandlot and to Hercules' back yard. They end up where they started, and the ball is back where Hercules wants it.

To strain an analogy a bit: I guess if the Hound of Heaven wants you and your treasures to come home, that's where you'll end up, no matter how long he has to chase you and how much trash you throw in the way.

Of course, ultimately Hercules' owner, himself an old baseball man, after learning of this whole escapade, says "Well, why didn't you just knock on the front door? I would have gotten your ball for you!"

There's a lesson in there that I'll let you figure out.

And there's a much deeper lesson in the words of Isaiah. Prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight His paths!

He is the King. May the mountains of our pride fall and the valleys of our sin fill with righteousness. May we welcome our King, and live out His Kingdom.

[Note: I posted this Sunday on both the HNW GAP Singles site and Out of the Bloo. Which is pretty lazy of me . . . I'm De-spicable]

Charles Spurgeon said, “I never pray more than five minutes, but I never go more than five minutes without praying.” The Bible tells us to “pray continually” (I Thessalonians 5:17). There are all kinds of ways to pray. So often we think that we have to have our heads bowed and eyes closed, begin formally and end formally. That’s one way to pray, but not the only way.

Is it prayer when you utter a quick “Help me, Lord” before confronting a co-worker? Is it prayer when you cry out to God when a semi truck almost hits you on the highway? Is it prayer when you feel helpless and afraid, but remember that God is with you? Is it prayer when you are grateful to God? The answer to all of those questions is “Yes”.

What other examples do you have?

In the Bible itself, we also see many types of prayers. Some are long, some are short. Some are poetic, some are plain. Some are simple, some are complex. Some are happy, some are angry. There are all kinds of ways to pray. But we have been given some simple guidelines.

Pray in Jesus’ name. Jesus said, “the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name” (John 15:16). This doesn’t mean that you have to end each prayer, “InjesusnameIprayamen.” It is not a magic formula. When we do anything “in someone’s name”, it means doing it for them or with their authority. As Christians, this means that when we pray in Jesus’ name we are praying for the sorts of things that Jesus would pray for. It also means that we are able to approach God in prayer because of what Jesus did for us. Jesus gives us the right to be sons and daughters of God. And it is only through him that God hears any prayers.

Pray according to God’s will. Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). God has the power to do anything. Of course, we don’t always get what we want. This is a good thing. How many times have we prayed for foolish things? The Bible also tells us “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (James 4:3).

The Bible tells us,

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will” (Romans 8:26-27).

If you know Christ, then God has given you the Holy Spirit. He takes our prayers, which we may feel are unworthy or insufficient, and takes them directly to God. Our Heavenly Father always hears the words of his children, however they are spoken or groaned.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
-- Galatians 6:9

We likely all recall the time Peter came up to Jesus and basically asked, “When I can I stop forgiving someone who keeps wronging me? After seven times?”
(I can almost hear him hoping, “Please tell me after seven times.”)
But Jesus responds to him, saying “No, not seven times. Seventy times seven times.”

For those of you doing the math, that comes to 490. The bad news (or good news, depending on which side of the forgiving you’re on :-) is that this is a symbolic number that basically means “forever.”
Jesus was saying to Peter, “No, you don’t give someone seven strikes. You just keep forgiving them . . . forever.”

Now, Jesus is a smart guy. In fact, if we believe he is who he said he was, we know he has all the omniscience of the God of the Universe. So he knows this is a tall order. He knows it doesn’t “make sense” in our world of abuse and betrayal and pettiness and vindictiveness and pride and arrogance and egotism.

So why does he do this? If he knows our capacity for love and forgiveness is finite, how can he call us to persevere in these things toward others? The short answer, I think, is because God Himself perseveres in them toward us.
Jesus goes on to tell Peter a story about a servant who was forgiven a huge debt by his master. The servant goes on then to punish a third party who owes the servant much less. When the master finds out, he has the debt-pardoned servant thrown in jail and tortured. And Jesus says – this is the scary part – that’s what will happen to us if, spurning the grace given us by God, we withhold grace from others.

Because God’s love toward us is a) despite sin worthy of eternal punishment, and b) relentlessly patient in its eternal perseverance, we have no Christian right to say to someone who has wronged us, even if they continue to wrong us, “You have reached your limit with me. My love for you stops now.” Doing so fails to truly see the depths of our sin in the light of God’s holiness. And if God, who is perfect and holy, will forgive and love we who are most certainly not, on what basis do we have to be unforgiving and unloving to others?

I am guessing most of us agree with this in theory. There’s not too many Christians who will say, despite Jesus’ instructions, that it’s okay to hate your enemies and curse those who persecute you.
I think the place where we really have trouble with this stuff is when it comes to people who are hurting us that we actually do really want to love. We really do want to keep forgiving them. But we are weary. They are wearing us out. We don’t know how much longer we can go on. We want to know if we can give up, but we’re scared what that might mean. Surely God does not want to us to keep enduring this pain. Surely he will understand if we just . . . give up. Things aren’t working. The results aren’t being seen. Efforts are not bearing fruit. I’ve changed, but he or she hasn’t.

Most of us know 1 Corinthians 13 really well, but let’s revisit a piece of it again:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres . . . Love never fails.

That’s some scary stuff right there. For we who are used to thinking of love as romance or warm-and-fuzzies or butterflies or sex, Paul has Jesus in mind as the model of love when he tells us, “Love is about sacrifice and service. And it keeps going. It never fails.”

How can this be? We think of those who have tried to love someone back from the brink only to see the person eventually go over. Certainly love fails in these circumstances, right?

I don’t think so. I think that’s true only if we are thinking of our love in terms of a results-based value. But that is not what Jesus is telling Peter. And that’s not what Paul is telling us.
Jesus does not offer Peter a loophole. There is no Forgiveness Contingency Plan. There’s no limited time warranty. Whether the person you’re loving embraces your forgiveness or not, you keep forgiving. Whether the person you love is changed by your love or not, you keep on loving.

In this sense, I don’t think “Love never fails” means “Love always gets the result the lover wants.” I think it means what it says: Love is not a failure.
Love is not a failure regardless of the results.

This is why: Because God is not a failure, and God is love. When we are loving someone with a persevering, sacrificial love, we are reflecting the eternal goodness and grace of God Himself. We are glorifying God, and there is no higher calling than that. None.
We love – not because it will “change the world” (although it may) – but because God loves us (1 John 4:19).

You would think this might incline us toward a begrudging love, then. “Oh, well, if it’s just for God, maybe I should stop hoping for change in the person I’m loving.” But Paul says love “always trusts, always hopes.”

Always trust that God is not content to honor your sacrificial love with a sympathetic pat on the head. Always hope that God is using your sacrificial love to change hearts and minds. (Maybe yours.)

Love always perseveres. Love never fails. So don’t give up.

Whoever you are, wherever you are: Don’t give up.
To the parents trying to love a wayward child back from the world, to the husband trying to love his wife back from drug addiction, to the wife trying to love her husband back from pornography or adultery, to the girl trying to love her friend back from bitterness, to the guy trying to love his friend back from despair – Don’t Give Up.
Don’t give up, don’t give up, don’t give up.

Whatever happens, whenever it happens, your love is not in vain. You are not alone, for God loves you and has approved your love through the sacrifice of his Son. Cast off despair; cast all your cares on Him.
Love never fails. Love is never a waste.

Romans 8:28
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Now it’s all well and good to get to the other side of a conflict or trial and say, “Ah, I see what that was all about now,” but it’s an entirely different thing to be in the muck and in the confusion and say, “God, I don’t know how, but I trust you are using this for my good. I trust you have a plan.”

The key to living in a redemptive way, to trusting Jesus the Redeemer, is to be trusting him to redeem you in the circumstances and situations, not after the fact. Anyone can get to the end of something and in a “whew!” moment, say “Well, I’m glad God got me out of that. Looking back, I can see he meant something with all that.”
But it takes a tough faith to be in the middle of by-all-indications desperate circumstances and think, “I’m glad you’re doing something with this, God.”
Because what is faith? It’s not retrospect.

Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

This conviction of things not seen isn’t just about trusting God to use our mess for glory; it’s also about trusting He’s in control of that mess and that there really is a higher order in place to which the mess is subject.

When you go around living a life of grace towards others, blessing your enemies, praying for those who hate you, forgiving those who keep hurting you, you are showing that your faith is in something Hoped For, that your convictions are about things not seen. Living a life of grace and hope and joy is really living a life of faith. And when you go around redeeming the difficult moments while you're stuck in the middle of them and being God’s instrument in bringing redemption to people, you are participating in the grand story God’s telling about Jesus the Redeemer. You are a vital character in the story of redemption God is telling about you, the ones you live with and around, and the Church and the world itself.

It takes a hard core faith, though. A radical faith. Anybody who’s lost one thing that is dear to them – whether it be a person who’s died or a dream that’s died – knows the exquisite agony of such trust.

Job 19:20-26

My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh,
and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends,
for the hand of God has touched me!
Why do you, like God, pursue me?
Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?

"Oh that my words were written!
Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
Oh that with an iron pen and lead
they were engraved in the rock forever!
For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
yet in my flesh I shall see God.

That is a living hope right there. A hope that says, “God you’ve taken everything. But I still trust you.”
Elsewhere Job says to God, “Though you slay me, yet will I trust you.”
In other words, "All I've got left is this miserable body of mine, and even if you want to take that away, God, I'm trusting You."
He wasn't trusting God for a new family and more stuff. He was just trusting God. Period.

Job’s faith here is not a pie in the sky, “wake me when I’m in heaven” faith. He says, "Even though this body will be destroyed, in my flesh I will see God. He knows that God will redeem his very body, give him new flesh, new eyes to see, new ears to hear, a new tongue to taste how good God is."

That’s what Jesus will do in the resurrection to come.

Someday Jesus the Redeemer will return to redeem everything. He’s going to come to finish what he started. This life will be redeemed, this earth will be redeemed, these very bodies will be redeemed, and so our hopes and dreams and fears and failings will all be redeemed too.

Revelation 21:1-5
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."

And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."

He is making all things new. And he’s doing it now. So whatever you’re going through, whatever you’ve been through, trust that the God who loves you is in control and is redeeming your life in it and through it. Trust that the God who loves you will sustain you as you seek to live redemptively with and toward others. Trust that the God who loves you will not forget you, that he’s crafting beauty out of your darkness, that he’s telling a great story in your life, an epic one that places you in a vital role in the story of the Body of Christ.

Whatever you’re doing, wherever you are, wherever life finds you, trust that the former things are passing away and Jesus the Redeemer is making all things new. Trust Him for that now -- in the moments, in the redemption of the momentary pain -- and that later redemption will be that much sweeter and more momentous.

Well, aside from this recent posting of mine, that's about as provocative as I'll get in titling a post.

But don't misunderstand it. This comes from Jollyblogger's New Years post, in which he quotes Dietrich Bonnhoffer from Life Together:

"Confess your faults one to another" (Jas. 5:16). He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. This pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. so we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners!

But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you. He wants you as you are; He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone. "My son, give me thine heart" (Prov. 23:26). God has come to you to save the sinner. Be glad! This message is liberation through truth. You can hide nothing from God. The mask you wear before men will do you no good before Him. He wants to see you as you are, He wants to be gracious to you. You do not have to on lying to yourself and your brothers, as if you were without sin; you can dare to be a sinner. Thank God for that; He loves the sinner but He hates sin.

I struggle with this, both with confessing my sins to others, and with the knowledge that I am a sinner. "Surely not!", I tell myself. And then sin rears it's ugly head.

And yet the church is there, to be a hospital for the sick, a place for healing and confession and restoration. May we work this year to make our churches such places.

"Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed." - James 5:16

From the December 28th devotional of My Utmost for His Highest:

The hindrance in our spiritual life is that we will not be continually converted, there are wadges of obstinacy where our pride spits at the throne of God and says - I won't. We deify independence and willfulness and call them by the wrong name. What God looks on as obstinate weakness, we call strength.

May we all have true strength in the days and years ahead . . .

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.

- Luke 2:8-9 (ESV)

It's likely you've read this scene many times. You've probably seen it acted out on more than a few Christmases; acted out by businessmen, janitors, lawyers, maybe even you, dressed in clumsy bathrobes in church nativity presentations through the years. It can lose its impact, can't it?

But I wonder. What was it like to be there, in that moment. These shepherds were regular guys, doing what they had done many nights in the past: marking time and keeping watch over their sheep. As they went to work that night none of them had any idea that their lives would be forever changed. True, things were a bit different these days; the city was jumping with visitors, irritated and weary travellers, census-takers, and profiteers. Perhaps the shepherds were glad for a little peace and quiet. None of them knew of, nor would they have taken note of, the exhausted couple that had arrived in their town that day. They hadn't seen the young and very pregnant woman grimace in pain, or heard the protestations of her very worried husband at the doors of the inns of Bethlehem. These shepherds, no doubt, had their own problems.

But then there came that moment when the sky exploded with light and everything changed. They were suddenly surrounded by beings heretofore unimagined, and they surely felt the terrifying thrill of what C.S. Lewis has called the salute of mortal flesh when it comes before the presence of immortality. And they heard these words: "“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord."

And so these terrified, wondering shepherds heard the greatest announcement that the world had ever heard, brought by the messengers of a God who had specifically commanded them that these poor shepherds were to be the first to know. And so began the confounding of the world that is the Incarnation, in which the greatest of all became the least, coming to a world with no room for Him, not even a proper crib, and born to a poor woman who had only narrowly escaped the scandal, disgrace and condemnation that her society could have heaped on her.

What was it like to be in that stable, to witness a birth which, as far as we know, Mary and Joseph had to accomplish on their own? Here was God, born into a world of dirt and animal smells and the sounds of the simple, rustic wonder of field hands called to His manger by the heavenly hosts; called because they were poor nobodies. They were the ones to which the Son of Righteousness came to preach good news. For to all the world's eyes, He was a poor nobody too.

It was the moment of the Incarnation, and it changed everything.

It's not fully Christmas for me unless I am in that moment as well, kneeling in worship by a most inglorious feed trough that was, confoundedly, specially chosen and glorified by God Himself to hold His Son.

Emmanuel has come, God is with us. And every thing's going to be alright.

It's Christmas!

On a Sabbath day during one of the Jewish feasts, Jesus went to Jerusalem. By the Sheep Gate there was the Bethesda pool, which was said to heal all manner of infirmities if entered when the water stirred. The place was big enough to require five roofed colonnades. All around the pool waited a multitude needing healing. The blind were there, and the lame and paralyzed. One guy waiting by the pool had been an invalid for almost 40 years.
Jesus saw him lying there and knew he'd been there a long time. "Don't you want to be healed?"
The man said, "Yes, but I don't have anyone to put me in the pool when the water starts stirring. And when I try to get in by myself, people push their way in front of me."

Jesus said to him, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk."
And at once the man was healed and he obeyed.

I love that story. It means the world to me for reasons I can't fully explain. That the man was too weak to help himself resonates with me. That he needed help but nobody would help him resonates with me. That he'd been waiting 38 years for healing resonates with me. That everybody was pushing in front of him to get theirs in the pool resonates with me.
That all it took was Jesus resonates with me.

I am finding it harder and harder to put up with self-helpy preachers. I don't get it. I want to be charitable -- and for once I won't name names, but you know who I'm talking about -- and part of that is because these guys at least carry the pretense of evangelicalism. They aren't all-around discounted like the Armani-clad cartoons on TBN. They still maintain supporters as long as pragmatism, Church Growth Movement ideology, and feel-good spirituality entertainment holds sway in American churches.

But that only makes them more gross. For the life of me I can't figure out what makes them so appealing. Because when I watch some preacher talk about the power of me and about being positive and speaking blessings into existence, I have no idea who he's talking to. Am I the first person to say I can't do it? I can't do it by myself. I'm incapable. I'm cynical, sure. Negative, yes. I'm a pessimist. But those aren't my problems.
Sin is. I'm being honest with myself. And until they can be honest about themselves -- and until they can be honest about me -- I have no interest in discovering the champion inside of me. Because he ain't in there. I checked.

I consider myself fairly spiritually mature. I trusted Jesus for salvation, and I keep doing that every day. But spiritually speaking, I'm a lame dude watching everyone else push their way into the foamy waters, waiting on something I can't manage on my own. No amount of rush or maneuvering or special pool-entry techniques are cutting it. I'm waiting on Jesus to show up, to make the pool irrelevant.

Look, either grace is sufficient or it isn't. Either the joy of the Lord is my strength or it isn't. All the rest is b.s.
I wish I was living my best life now, but I'm not. I'm wandering (as if you couldn't tell just by reading this post). And I'm wondering how to continue, day in and day out, loving scavenged manna. I mean, I'm scraping the stuff off the side of rocks and whatnot. But I know the dude in the gigantic arena saying he's got lobster and caviar for me to eat is a liar.

Knowing that is no consolation. But knowing Jesus is.

Thinkling regular F.R.E.D. has written a good piece on legalism over at his blog:

The term "legalism" is one that seems to be thrown around fairly often in the Christian circles of blogdom as well as the world at large. It seems that posts or comments concerning modern day Pharisees or those pesky brethren from the South popup on a regular basis. Recently I've read posts about quiet-time legalists and workout legalists, go-to-church legalists and age-of-accountability legalists. It seems that for every subject there is at least one brand of legalist.

I liked it. Read the whole thing here.

. . . but I thought many of you would benefit from it. Doug Wilson on pride.

Pride is a sin that God hates above all others . . . He does hate it, and because God hates it, so should we. But if we hate it rightly, as forgiven sinners, we will hate it first in ourselves. We have to be very careful here. I have seen some who hate (and sternly rebuke) what they perceive as arrogance in others first, and they do so, not as a humble one grieved over insolence, but rather as a competitor jockeying for position. The ugly result is nothing like humility hating pride, but rather envy hating any kind of blessing for others. "Who does he think he is?" is a sentiment that is almost certainly uttered from the seat of pride. Sinful pride hates competion, and loves to be catty about it. And sinful pride can feel good about this catty hatred of pride in others, because, after all, does not God hate pride as well? That's us, thinking God's thoughts after Him.

. . . We should learn to hate what wisdom hates. "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate" (Prov. 8:13). We sometimes think that we should not hate, but this is to reject the words of God. We must hate sins, and, if this is true, we must hate the mother of all sins—pride, arrogance, insolence.

Pride knows how to wave the most bizarre tokens of "accomplishment" over its head, and this brings us to the issue of doctrinal pride. "We Calvinists have the truth, to be distinguished from all those semi-Pelagian bozos out there." When it comes to the doctrines of grace, this is particularly insane—what do we have that we did not receive as a gift (1 Cor. 4:7)? And if it was a gift, why do we boast as though it were not? So, are we now to take pride in our knowledge that we are not allowed to take pride in anything? Boastful attitudes can mouth any words, including "free grace, exhaustive sovereignty," or "soli Deo gloria." Moreover, the gift of acknowledging God's sovereignty was a gift we did not want. At any rate, I certainly did not want it, and surrendering to Calvinism in principle (telling God that I was "willing" for it to be true) was one of the great eat-your-spinach moments of my life. No doubt there was great jubilation in the courts of heaven when old Wilson decided that he was willing for Romans 9 to stay in the Bible, what with the cherubim chest-bumping and all. The lunacy of this kind of doctrinal pride and conceit must be stated with great emphasis before the next point can be made.

. . . Submission to the Godness of God is what sanity means. Understanding who God is, and gladly submitting to Him should be our very definition of what it even means to be sane.

All this relates to the antidote to all pride. What heals the poison of arrogance and boasting? It is not "no boasting," but rather learning to change the direct object of our boast. What is the antidote to pride? The Bible teaching that the answer is boasting. "My soul shall make her boast in the Lord: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad" (Ps. 34:2; cf. 2 Cor. 10:17).

The very first CD I ever owned, one I bought before I even owned a CD player to play it on, was Russ Taff's Under Their Influence: Volume 1. (I'm not sure he ever made a Volume 2.) I played the heck out of that thing.
I still have it and pulled it out of my collection last week. I hadn't listened to it in ages. One song that really ministered to me is "God Don't Ever Change."

I've changed a lot in the fifteen years since I first heard that song. Fifteen years is not a long time, but I've gone from no facial hair to a few sprigs of gray in my brow, from having no luck with all the girls I liked to being blessed for ten years with the woman of my dreams, from stuttering like a fool to speaking to large groups with (occasional) praise to trying to get two little girls to listen to me, from skinny to fat to working my way back, from sinning like crazy to . . . Well, I guess some things haven't changed.
But in my highs and lows and successes and setbacks, in my delights and -- yes, I'm sad to say -- in my depressions, I believe God has been faithful. My heart and soul are as firm as the shifting sand, but God has ever held me.

Here's a recent post of Bill's from Out of the Bloo that rocks my socks off:

He's always good, in the good times and the bad. He was so good during some of the hardest times we've ever faced back a year ago, and he's so good now, having completely redeemed that situation.

Struggles will come and go, situations will arise, "happenings" will challenge our happiness, but there is a deep joy in knowing the Lord and knowing that He has it all under control. And that he really goes beyond my feeble expectations and thoughts and imaginings.

If you are facing an impossible situation, know that nothing is too hard for him. He can redeem that situation, and the next one, and the next one . . . none of us are ever "out of the woods" this side of glory. But he is the Lord of the woods, and the mountains, and the valleys, and even in the deepest, darkest pits his arm remains very strong to save.

To him be the glory, forever and ever. Amen!

Amen.

This question, while amusing, is often asked by children. It's a valid question. I don't know the answer for sure for two reasons:
1. I've never met Adam and so this isn't something I've seen for myself.
2. The Bible doesn't answer this question directly.

But we can engage in some reasonable speculation. This is the story of Adam's creation according to Genesis 2:7. '

The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.'

And then God created Eve.

'Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man"' (Genesis 2:22).

Our navels come from our time in the womb when we needed nourishment from our mothers through the umbilical cord. But God created Adam and Eve as full-grown adults. Therefore, I think it's reasonable to conclude that Adam and Eve did not have bellybuttons because they didn't need them. It makes me smile to imagine their children pointing at their own bellies and saying, 'Dad, how come you don't have one of these?' Then Adam would tell the story of his own creation, teaching his children where we all come from.

This question leads us to the more important one: 'Who made me?' And the answer is quite clear.

'Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule"over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them' (Genesis 1:26-27).

Out of all God's creatures, it is only human beings that were created in God's image.

Human beings are the crown of God's creation. When you think about the magnificence of God's creation, that is a wondrous thought.

'When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet"' (Psalm 8:3-6).

God made us in his own image. He made us like him so that we reflect and represent him to the world. This is a great privilege and an awesome responsibility.

God made you, body and soul, exactly as he wanted you. David knew that.

'For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well"'(Psalm 139:13-14).

You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Praise the Lord for that today!