Back to the basics...

When everything is a mess, when the storm rages around us and there seems no end to the confusion getting back to the basics that center and refocus us. The basics help us see once again the BIG picture of who we are and how we relate to the world around us and the larger world in which we live. How big am I? How big is this storm now? How big is it compared to eternity?


Max Lucado, in a collection of his writings titled Grace for the Moment lists seven “God-given, time tested truths” that get us back to the basics. I think they remind us of the BIG picture and the small picture. They along with some comments follow:

• Love God more than you fear hell. It is real easy to fear evil more than love God. Love is the most powerful force in the universe after all God is love.

• Make major decisions in a cemetery. If we considered every decision as to how much it will matter one nanosecond into eternity (nano means one billionth) we might choose differently or be more confident about our choice.

• When no one is watching, live as if someone is. In a word integrity.

• Succeed at home first. These are the folks who will care for you when you are old or broke or broken.

• Don’t spend tomorrow’s money today. Washington are you listening? (sorry couldn’t resist)

• Pray twice as much as you fret. Twice? I don’t think that is enough do you? Prayer is a focus on the solution fretting is looking at the problem.

• God has forgiven you; you’d be wise to do the same. It’s easy to be all righteous hen that’s not your issue. Let’s never forget There but by the grace of God go I.

Rick Warren is pastor of Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Church and The Purpose Driven Life he posted these words recently via twitter:

Build ur [your] ministry on 2 confessions:"HE is the Christ, Son of the living God"Mt16 & "WE are just human like you"Acts14

Jesus gave us the basics in Matthew 6:33

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. NIV

It is funny how easy it is to get away from the most basic principles of life and how comforting it is to remember them.

Drama, Drama life's a drama...

...tell me about it I have a teen aged daughter at home. There is always drama going on with her or one of her friends or somebody. It’s the drama that entertains and infuriates us at the same time. Let’s consider reality TV.


          Not long ago two of my friends were talking about the new season on Dangerous Catch. For those uninformed, the show chronicles the lives of the crab fishermen during the fishing season in the Bering Sea. Crab fishing has long been considered the deadliest occupation, hence the name of the show. My friends were not talking about the danger or the catch but rather about the men and captains who would be back and what they were like etc. It was almost a soap opera, Deadliest Catch a soap, go figure. That is the key to the success of a show, the lives of the characters. With reality TV real characters have lives in view of millions each week. Survivor, Big Brother, The Bachelor, Ice Road Truckers and a new one (for me) Swamp People are about interpersonal relationships, drama. You might think that day to day drama would be enough but no, we hurry home to see more on television. People and their stories are entertainment for others. Real life is always more incredible than fiction and more important.

          Donald Miller the author of Blue Like Jazz and other books spoke some years ago at a conference I attended. He told in a very funny way of how we look at life as if it is a movie we star in. We have two cameras we call eyes and the story is about me. I am the star. You thought you were the star but no it is I who stars. You, I am sorry to inform are a bit player in my movie called life. That’s how we roll through life. Everything we do is so important. Everything we say is amazing. Every decision is life and death, our drama.

          Cosmic drama is playing out in the media and Washington these days as they talk about reducing the budget deficit by 4 trillion dollars. What does 4 trillion mean? Let’s compare, In cosmic terms light travels 5.8 trillion miles in one year ie, one light year. That is 186,000 miles per second or eight minutes to get from the surface of the sun (93 million miles away) to this planet. Light is fast. I am not. The universe is so big that we use light years 5.88 trillion miles to measure distances. The closest star is 4 light years away. The farthest galaxy observed is estimated to be 13-15 billion light years away. The galaxy we are a part of is one of billions of galaxies and our star is one of billions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is estimated to be 100,000 light years across and our star 25,000 light years from the center. It is turning and the entire 360 degree rotation takes 250 million years. Our planet is one of 7 in our solar system (Pluto was demoted recently from planet status) with a diameter of 8, 000 miles and 6 billion human inhabitants. The cosmos are very,very, BIG. That leaves my head spinning and feeling very, very, small. You too? Wait there’s more Louie Giglio writes, “You are a galactic nobody—in fact 99.99999999999999999999999999999999 percent of the people on earth have never heard of you. But God knows about you and calls you His own.” (P. 52 i am not but I know I AM). Now that’s DRAMA!

          WOW the one who is bigger than the universe, older than time, faster than light knows about me and calls me by name even though I am very, very, small! I’m not even in the movie when I consider how small I am in the cosmic drama and how BIG is GOD. You know maybe what I think is so important and dramatic is not so important of the larger stage. Maybe the drama I make is really nothing. Maybe how people treat me is really nothing in the movie called the cosmos. Maybe I am not as important as I want to think I am. Louie Giglio continues,

“What more could we possibly achieve on earth that is greater than what we already have? We are already friends of God. What greater prize or position could we hope to gain? What praise of men could eclipse the voice of I AM speaking to us by name?" p.53

          Really, what other drama compares? What matches up with the knowledge that God who is bigger than the universe knows my name, my heart and my life and still chose to humble himself as a man so that I, the smallest of the small, could be in relationship with him the bigger of the BIG.

Now that’s drama.

That’s reality and NOT TV.

BroG

Last week while I was speaking I began to think...

that is dangerous I know. Speaking before you think and thinking while you are speaking. I said (not to take the credit I have heard this before) we are “human beings” not “human doings.” Have you heard that? What we are is determined by who we are and not what we do. Doing comes from being but being does not come from doing. However, in this sin infected, infested and affected world things get fouled up and reordered all the time.


Our current Washington political crisis is evidence of the backwardness of our thinking and doing. Do you think things would be different if we elected our political representatives based on who they are rather than what they promise they can do? I think so. Thank God that our founding fathers thought of country first and their welfare second. By what I see I am not so sure I can say that of too many in elected office. But, I am not immune.

I get caught in the doing rather than being. I think what can I do to fix… how can I affect… what is the next new thing. Several approached Jesus asking what they could do to have eternal life? If I go to… or serve on this…or read my Bible _times each day or give X$$$ to the church. I have heard folks ask, “am I good enough to go to heaven?” or state, “good people go to heaven.” Maybe you have heard that as well. All of this is about our being “human doings” rather than “human beings.” I heard the answer in contemporary terms recently when a person said, “I’m not good enough to go to heaven. I’m counting on Jesus.” I said exactly right You are not good enough neither am I but He is. Jesus said in various ways to his inquirers (those who want to know) you underestimate who I am and overestimate who you are. You can not do enough only I can. Then what is there to do? Just be.

“Be a follower of me.” Do this and you will be through Christ:

4-6…citizens of Heaven! For consider what he has done - before the foundation of the world he chose us to become, in Christ, his holy and blameless children living within his constant care. He planned, in his purpose of love, that we should be adopted as his own children through Jesus Christ - that we might learn to praise that glorious generosity of his which has made us welcome in the everlasting love he bears towards the Son.

7-10 - It is through the Son, at the cost of his own blood, that we are redeemed, freely forgiven through that full and generous grace which has overflowed into our lives and opened our eyes to the truth. For God had allowed us to know the secret of his plan, and it is this: he purposes in his sovereign will that all human history shall be consummated in Christ, that everything that exists in Heaven or earth shall find its perfection and fulfillment in him.

11-12 - And here is the staggering thing - that in all which will one day belong to him we have been promised a share (since we were long ago destined for this by the one who achieves his purposes by his sovereign will), so that we, as the first to put our confidence in Christ, may bring praise to his glory! Ephesians 1:4-12 J.B. Phillips

What is there for me to do? Nothing except to participate in the glorious transformation that Christ is performing from the inside out. He has brought me to this point in life and has not wasted a single moment. I him all is connected together. All the doings and happenings of life find meaning and purpose only in Christ who consummates and reconciles everything in himself. This world and the next are joined in Christ.

I can be a human being because Christ is doing on my behalf.

I was just sayin'...and thinking a little. 

Funny things happen...

...all the time. The other morning I fired up the computer (you know I have never seen a computer lit on fire) and a notice comes to the screen saying windows has found new hardware. That was news to me as I had not installed any new hardware. The next box said my wireless adapter had been found and it was busy installing the necessary software for the adapter. I did not know it was missing since it doesn’t come out. So, the machine finishes and I turn on the antennas to search for a wireless network that I know is there but cannot connect to due to a security issue (yes, I know the password. I set it up but even sitting right next to the computer (the wireless router) I could not connect. The computer finds the network and asks for the security password so I type it in just for grins. Low and behold the thing connects and has excellent service. That’s just crazy. It has never worked like that before. In fact, I am still in disbelief because I check it every day to see if it will still connect. Funny things happen all the time.

Today I posted to my Facebook page these words, “Have you noticed how we look to h$#@ (lies) for answers only Heaven (truth) can provide and then wonder what's wrong? You know the phrase “what the $#@! I am thinking about how peculiar that is to say. For a follower of Christ we are no longer hell bound but Heaven bound. We are being fitted for Heaven each and every day by the trials of the day. Those difficulties shape us and mold us to fit to Heaven’s environment. Heaven is different than here. We need to be different to live there. I think that is why it always seems earth is getting worse because we are not fitting in here so well. We struggle to make sense of the odd-fit. Funny things happen like that.

We relate Heaven and life there to earth and life here? Yes, here is all we know. Here is all we can compare it to but Jesus said we are being transformed. This is not our home. I think we all want to know what heaven is like. If we look in the Bible (go figure) and not the internet (go figure) we don’t find too many descriptions of heaven and even then they are hard to picture. I don’t do the names of colors well. It is hard for me to relate a word to a color. I think that is because words cannot describe Heaven. They just can’t do it. I earth is to Heaven as a pecan is to a pecan tree. There is no way to describe a pecan tree by studying a pecan. The funny thing is we try to explain Kingdom things in earth words and understanding. It doesn’t work. We look all around us for the answer (I call that horizontal thinking) when the truth is only found in vertical thinking. Vertical thinking is considering the nature of our new existence in Christ. Looking, Heaven ward for the answers and solutions that evade us instead of all around us. Looking to the one found in the Word of God and his Word Jesus. Recognizing we are being renewed and transformed over a lifetime to fit into Heaven’s environment/system. That’s how we will roll in the future. Funny thing is we are to be learning to roll like that now even while we are here. Earth has so many answers, solutions and experts it is indeed hard not to look at them and consider their advice, ill fitting though it will be. In the past, we have even taken their sage advice to heart and put it into practice with little or no success, funny how that seems to happen each time.

Maybe “that day” one day soon I will turn on my computer and on the screen a pop-up will appear that says “Found New Operator no installation required,” funny things do happen all the time.

FREEDOM...

As a country we celebrate on July 4th the anniversary of our independence another year of freedom. The declaration was signed on July 4, 1776 but freedom did not come until a war had been fought and freedom had been earned. It was challenged again in 1812 but freedom continued. It seems in the 21st century each year it gets harder and harder to be free. More regulations and complications are discovered and uncovered as to our conduct in society and politics. You hear more cries for more personal freedom regardless of any and all others. All of this requires us to work at this thing called democracy. The call of Christ is for freedom but not for independence but rather dependency.

For as much as we consider ourselves to be independent we are not. We depend on others every day to obey the rules, traffic laws, personal space, privacy you name on it we depend on them to “do the right thing.” It’s the breakdown of our common expectations that cause the great difficulty. Consider a rude comment. Yes, the commentator has the right to free speech but not at the price of another, a struggle is born. Political leaders are unable to reach a compromise for budgets, and other bills, conflict continues. That I-want-what-I-want-and-I-want-it-now design of ours comes to light in the most in opportune moments. That is our most basic struggle with freedom, Freedom from ourselves.

Jesus made that freedom possible by his own sacrifice but it comes with a struggle, the struggle to be more than our most basic passions and desires. We are not free yet even as we claim Christ as our rescue. No, freedom only comes through the struggle, for nations war, for individuals war as well but more on the inside rather than the out. Freedom for the inside is to “die to self” to serve others because we love them more than ourselves. Freedom, Paul called it slavery and gave his very life to being a slave to the gentiles for their freedom. Like William Wallace in Braveheart freedom was Paul’s passion, commitment and constrictor. It defined him and his life. He became more dependent upon Christ each day of his life.

His freedom did not come quickly it was some 14 years before his first missionary journey following his experience with Christ. Our national freedom has transpired over a 225 year period and it is still not done! The freedom Christ has paid for transforms us over a lifetime. We are still in process experiencing and learning this new found freedom of service. That is why grace is so important because others on the transformational process and in process too. Not perfected like us (so we believe) and so they are problems for us. “The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair” so Reliant K said. It’s true I have not received all I am due by grace. Likewise others are not due all they deserve if I will extend the grace I have received to them, their freedom in exchange for mine, true independence by being completely dependent upon Christ.

Freedom for others is dependent upon me giving up my freedom for them. We see this is our military families who give up so much for our protection and the freedom of others. It is a struggle for each family and a great sacrifice. We see the same in Christ who died so we could be free. This Independence Day let’s protect our freedom by serving another. Love them more than ourselves. That let’s freedom ring. Yes, it’s a struggle remember it was born from struggle.

Freedom, it’s not easy the best things never are.