. . . as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.

– Philippians 1:20 (ESV)

I don’t know if I have a “life verse”, or even if having a “life-verse” is a good idea.

But if I had one, it would be this one!

It is very easy for me to feel ashamed. Of myself, mainly. It’s hard to explain, but this has been a struggle for me all my life. It is a struggle I would like to put behind me.

I am not naturally noble or cool, and I still can’t figure out why I was blessed with such a cool wife and cool children. God is so good. He has been incredibly good to me.

My dream for my own life’s ending is that I won’t be ashamed. That I will have “full courage” – and not just at the ending of my life, which I probably think about more than is normal or useful :-), but also now. Oh to live a life that leaves me not at all ashamed.

Christ deserves to be honored in my body. Whether I live or die.

May it be so.

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing–as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

– Colossians 1:3-14

Paul loved the people he had ministered to and with. Just absolutely loved them. You can see it shine through passages like this one. He wanted nothing but the best for them, and for God to be glorified in them. He wanted them to have a walk worthy of their calling. To increase in good works. He wanted them to be strong, and to stay strong in the heat of tribulation. He prayed for them every day, for them to have endurance, and patience, and joy.

I have no wisdom to add to this. I was just touched by reading this passage tonight. I have felt this way myself, although I don’t claim to have anywhere near the passion and self-sacrifice that Paul had for his people. But I know the feeling. They aren’t your people, they are God’s people, but in a way, they are yours. You want them to grow, to be strong. To make it! To endure but not just to survive but rather to live abundantly in joy. So that one day you can sit at their feet and be challenged and exhorted by them, because they have passed you up.

I think of our own kids, and this desire for them burns in me. And they aren’t even our kids, they are God’s kids, but in a way they are ours too as he has loaned them to Jill and I for this short while. I look forward to the day when I will marvel at how far they have come in the Lord, and at how they are now leading me. And, finally, on that Day when we meet again and embrace in eternity, I will be thanking them for being shining examples and mentors to me, and not the other way around.

I have also felt this way (and still feel this way) for the band kids I was allowed to minister to for awhile. I don’t see them much anymore, but I have an inkling of how Paul felt. How I want them to grow, and to not just survive but to thrive! To pass far beyond my walk as they run in joyful faith the race God has set before them. To shine so brightly that when I meet them five or ten years from now I will have to put on shades. Lord, let it be!

. . .giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

– Genesis 1:1-2 (ESV)

“The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters”.

I’m pondering this statement as I sit here importing database records for some blogs I’m trying to restore. I am engaged right now in what could modestly be called a creative action – configuring and writing blog software. I enjoy this – it’s something that energizes me.

I believe fully that God enjoyed (and enjoys) His creation too. We can try to fathom, unsuccessfully, the working of the unfathomably complex mind of our Creator as he pondered what He was about to do, hovering over the face of the deep. He is at peace, in control, competent in a way that we cannot even comprehend. Skilled beyond our wildest imagination. The Expert.

His mind – what a mind! In this creative act, performed in the beginning, I see the joy of our God. He hovered over the face of the deep; just imagine His mind at work. How unsearchable is His amazing wisdom! The nuclear physicist, designing the strong and weak forces, the spin of sub-atomic particles that we haven’t even discovered yet and this amazing quantum paradigm that drives the universe. The software engineer – a programmer if you will – developing the DNA strand with its limitless ability to replicate and recombine the genetic code in nearly incomprehensible complexity. The geologist, setting in motion the stirrings, the groans of this planet and indeed all planets. Massive continents in motion! Worlds spinning around enormous stars in the depths of space. He is the great botanist, painter, zoologist, blacksmith, chemist, architect, inventor, musician, astrophysicist, meteorologist, creator. He is God. There is no other.

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

– Genesis 1:31 (ESV)

From Matt at Gad(d)about:

. . . something amazing happened at one of our friends’ church on Sunday. An assistant pastor was welcomed back into the fold after leaving and falling into sin. The pastor preached on sin, on redemption in Christ, on restoration in the Body. Then the man got up and apologized to the church, confessed his sin, and asked to be restored as a member. He just wants to attend church and sit at the foot of the Cross. He was broken and contrite.

The pastor then took the mic as the man broke down and sat in a pew. People were expecting some kind of ceremonial “we love you and we welcome you back.” Instead, the pastor looked intently into the audience and said, “OK, I know some of you out there are going through the same thing, the same kind of sin. You need to come forward and repent.”

After a few seconds a 20-year-old man from the back row that people barely knew came to the front. He started the grab the mic and was prepared to confess as well, but the pastor just spoke to him quietly and prayed for him as he sought forgiveness. Then others started to come.

It didn’t take long for half the church, about 100 people, to come forward. It was a full-blown church renewal. God has used the brokeness of this man to speak conviction into these people’s hearts.

That night one of the more prominent members of the church called the pastor. This man told the pastor he had scheduled to commit suicide that night, that he had been despondent for months, and had been thinking about death ever since. That act of contrition changed his heart, and the Holy Spirit renewed him. He said he has been dramatically changed and has a new desire to live to honor God.

Confession. It appears to be one of the main vehicles that God uses to bring revival and restoration to his church. In the case described above it touched over 100 people, including one who was planning on committing suicide.

Confession is scary. When you confess your failings and sins to someone you are opening yourself up to rejection and judgement. And yet the Bible has this to say:

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.

– James 5:16a (ESV)

The context of this verse has to do with physical healing, but I believe it is appropriately applied to emotional and spiritual healing too. And notice the balance – confess your sins to one another and pray for one another. We are to unburden ourselves of the weight of our failings as we carry the burdens of others in prayer to our Father. That is fellowship. That is beauty. And it’s what we’re called to do.

I find confession hard. I don’t have anything spectacular to confess; I mean I don’t drink, smoke or chew or hang with women who do. But there are plenty of those internal sins that tend to take root in my life. Petty jealousies. Greed. Pride. Sloth. Envy. These are the biggies. It’s the ongoing and frightening battle between my love and desire for God, and my love of self and desire to be my own god and to chase after the gods of this world. Part of me is with Moses atop mount Sinai, with unveiled face, communing with the Lord. But another part is down in the valley dancing before the golden calf (I think I’m doing the “frug”). Wholeness is elusive.

Yet wholeness and healing can come – they are coming. Through confession and repentance. Through the work of the Spirit. To revisit a passage I blogged on yesterday:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

– 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 ESV

This all brought to mind something Jared at Thinklings recently wrote:

1. The churches are broken.

There are lots of reasons for this, and they’re not all broken in the same way, but the things the churches are currently doing aren’t helping and most of the things the churches are doing to fix themselves don’t work

Yes, many churches and people are broken and are in need of healing. I am beginning to think that what we in the church need is confession.

[hat tip: The Broken Messenger]

It is a grave error and a massive conceit to attempt to usurp the role of God in another person’s sanctification process, telling God, “As far as I’m concerned, you’re not working fast enough.”

So writes Dan Edelen in his post A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.

Oh I needed to read this today! Dan refers to this passage:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

– 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 ESV

That’s a great word. We are all being transformed into the image of Christ, from one degree of glory to another. It’s a process that does not end while we’re on this earth. “One degree of glory to another” – wow! There is hope for me after all.

But what of others? How do I treat them as I observe them at their place on the journey of sanctification? I’ve had some wise friends caution me recently that I am far too impatient with (and discouraged by) others who aren’t “getting it” as fast as I want them to. Dan presents a view of sanctification as a numberline, from -10 to +10, with +10 being the image of Christ:

But what are we to expect when someone starts at -9? Is +7 a week after meeting Jesus possible? A month? A year? A decade? If we can’t distinguish the difference in the sun’s arc across the sky from one minute to the next, how confident are we that we see with the eyes of God that one minute difference in the arc of a person’s sanctification process? To go back to the 2 Corinthians 3 passage and its note on “degrees of glory,” there are 180 degrees in a U-turn. A long obedience in the same directionThat’s a lot of tiny steps to take. Being made to look like Jesus is not a blink-of-an-eye affair, but one of a lifetime of minute, resolute steps. As Eugene Peterson’s classic book on discipleship is titled, it’s “a long obedience in the same direction.”

There’s not a person reading this now who doesn’t know at least one Christian out there who’s taking a long time to break out of the negative numbers on the depravity scale and into those higher, positive sanctification digits. Yet what does it say about us when we screw up our faces and rail that the ex-biker who spent ten years smoking crack isn’t where he should be after meeting Jesus two years ago because he smokes cigarettes now instead of crack? Sure, he’s down to just a pack a day from five a year ago, but still. And just why is it that he takes so long locating the Book of Habakkuk?

I really, really needed to read this today.

Go read the whole post if you get a chance.

Search me, O God, and know my heart!

Try me and know my thoughts!

And see if there be any grievous way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting!

Psalm 139:23-24 (ESV)

This is a frightful request to make. Yet I find myself making it more and more these days.

I read other Christians in the blogosphere speak of their brokenness, and I reflect upon my own. Though redeemed I contend, daily, with the condition of being human in a fallen world, in my fallen body. In his novel Out of the Silent Planet, C.S. Lewis tells of the interaction between Ransom, a man from Earth, and a race of creatures, the “Hrossa”, inhabiting another planet. It slowly becomes clear to Ransom that these creatures do not have a sin nature. As he learns their language he realizes that they don’t even have a word for “bad”. The closest servicable word they have is the word “bent”. I remember one point in the novel when Ransom, in speaking of the human race, shamefully confesses “We are very bent”.

I am very bent.

I am becoming more aware these days of what an enemy to good and rational thought my mind is. My mind tells me things that simply aren’t true. My mind rationalizes my motives, keeps me blind to my failings, invents failings for me to fret about that aren’t even real, misinterprets the motives of others, and constantly circles around the little god of self. My mind couldn’t identify a grievous way in me even if it wanted to. And, I can guarantee you it doesn’t.

I need another set of eyes looking at this problem. There is both a thrill and a great fear in asking the Father to examine my life. A thrill because I know he can and does know my heart far better than I do. If anyone can identify a grievous way in me, my Lord can. And he can lead me in the way everlasting!

But the fear comes from the vulnerability of being unmasked under the bright light of Truth. Of being “searched”. In my worst moments (which are all too frequent) I’d prefer not to spread ’em and get the divine pat-down. I’ve got too many secrets.

But Lord, I know I need it. Search me, try me, and know my thoughts. See if there is anything in me that grieves you. Cleanse me, heal me, and lead me. You only can I trust to do this.

I was reading Philippians 3 today. There are truths here that are too deep, too wonderful, too terrible for me to want to understand. And yet I do want to understand. Paul writes:

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith

– Philippians 3:8-9 (ESV)

I wonder what it’s like to lose all things and consider them rubbish after the losing. All things? I’m too invested in this world, I’m too secure in my multi-layered safety nets. I’m too secure in my own righteousness.

Paul, on the other hand, had skin in the game, literally. In fact, he’d already lost quite a bit of his skin for the sake of the gospel.

– that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

– Philippians 3:10-11 (ESV)

. . . and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death . . .

This is where we begin to understand what loving God is like. I tell God that I love him all the time, yet I wonder. Will I be willing to share in his sufferings when my number is called?

Paul understood and lived a life aligned with Christ’s sufferings. He identified himself with the rogue Galilean who had been executed in the backwater land of Judea years earlier. Paul made the authorities nervous. He and those of like mind (the “Christians” they were derisively called) were beginning to topple some important structures. They spoke of another kingdom, which their Christ had inaugurated and had commanded them to take to the world. They appeared insane enough to carry their mission to its logical conclusion, no matter how many of them had to be nailed up.

They made people uneasy.

To be honest, they make me uneasy too.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

– Philippians 3:12-16 (ESV)

Lord, you have made me your own. I know, with increasing lucidity, that I don’t deserve this. Grace is so beautiful.

To strain forward to the goal, to stretch toward the upward call, not the call of the status quo, must be my desire. Yet even the desire is something I can’t manufacture on my own. I am not mature, but I know you have promised to reveal the steps ahead, in your time, as you mature me.

In the meantime, I pray that I will hold true to what I have attained, because it was you who attained it.

May I begin to grasp these deep, wonderful, and terrible truths.

Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

– Romans 12:10 (ESV)

Just picture it. Everyone, all of us, striving hard to outdo each other in showing honor to each other. Or, as it’s rendered in the NASB, to “give preference to one another in honor.”

I love that! Picture it. Brothers and sisters saying, in small ways and big ways, “This honor is coming to me, but I’d prefer it go to you.” Brothers and sisters loving each other not just as a “have to”, but with affection. In other words, not just loving each other but also “liking” each other, that we might be a true family.

Beautiful. What a light to shine in a world that sometimes seems crammed full of chest-pounding, glad-handing, end-zone-dancing, boasting, braying, glory hogs. And sometimes the hog doing the chest-pounding (ow), end-zone-dancing (ever seen me dance? Not a pretty sight), boasting and braying is me. And that, my friends, will suck the light out of any situation.

Dear Lord, may I strive, with motives clean and heart pure, to outdo others in passing honor on to them. That ultimately You will be honored, above all and alone. For You alone deserve all honor.

If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.

How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.

James 3:3-12 (ESV)

I was reading some live journals tonight and came across one written by a student I know. He was spilling out his hurt, telling of how worthless and unloved he feels because of words that his father had spoken to him.

This thought came to my mind. Words are like evil spirits. They haunt forever.

Lord Jesus, may we all learn not to speak idle words that rip others to pieces. May we learn to respect the tongue, this restless evil full of deadly poison. May we be overcome by the holy fear of Your wrath when we curse those made in Your image!

And when we speak, may our words be used to heal a broken world that desperately needs the kindness of the Lord to shine through us.

God, give me strength my evil self to kill,

And die into the heaven of thy pure will.

Then shall this body’s death be very tolerable.

– From George MacDonald’s Diary of an Old Soul

Saw this on Shizuka Blog today.

Yes.