Missing Grace

I consider this to be the saddest passage in all of Scripture.  Here was an opportunity to show grace and it was passed over.

Luke 2:7 ESV

And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

 

I want to first acknowledge that I am the inn keeper every day.  Someone messes up an order, I make sure they know of the mistake.  Someone stalls in a promise, I remind them of what they originally said.  Someone hides behind the “God card,” I remind them about grace (the irony in that one is rich!) I stumble in showing grace to the older brother from the story of the prodigal.  When we refuse to show grace to others, we miss out on the blessing that took place in the manger.  New life broke through the world that night in the manger.  The inn keeper was busy worrying about customer service.  Hope invaded mankind.  The inn keeper was tallying up his profit.

The passage in Isaiah 61:3 that describes God giving us beauty for ashes is a beautiful picture of what takes place in the middle of our brokenness.  Jesus was born when animals had defecated.  Maybe the inn keeper had let a prostitute hide for a night there.  I doubt it was plush but the occupants that night would set our course for eternity.

I encourage you that the next time you are tempted to withhold grace, remember that grace is being poured out on you even in that moment.  Don’t miss out on the beauty of the stable that takes place in our lives everyday.  Become a person of the second chance.

PS.

Here is a great article by Mike Foster talking about the question that kills grace everyday.

http://www.potsc.com/gracenomics/the-most-deadly-question-for-grace/

Pain of the Gospel

My heart has been stirred as of late through the reading of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea and Micah.  I have also listened to the passionate pleas of AW Tozer, EM Bounds and Leonard Ravenhill.  I am convicted of how much noise is in my life and the subtle lies that the world tempts me as a believer to conform to.  I struggle to think of the last time I have shared the transforming power of the gospel with another person one on one.

This past week I shared my personal inventory with my closest earthly friend. I say that because he knows me deeper than any other and only by God’s grace can he love me and walk with me.  After sharing the deep and darkest secrets of past sins and exposing the lies that the enemy wants me to believe in, he made a precise cut to my soul.  I will paraphrase his words of wisdom, the pain you feel is the tearing out of roots you have in this world and the grip it has had on you.  This past Sunday was another refreshing time with another brother in Christ.  I heard his heart about prayer and sharing others burden’s.  We talked about being unified in the Spirit and how that is only possible when we cry out, “Have your way in us and as it is in heaven let it be on earth.”

When is the last time it truly hurt to have the grip of this world pried from the hand?  Warren Wiersbe notes in his study of Lot and Abraham that God tested Abraham but Lot was so spiritually low that God need not test him.  All Lot’s tests and temptations came from the world and his own heart.  That hits me to the core.  I look back at most of my wounding and scars that are either self-inflicted or from the worldly desires.  AW Tozer preaches that modern believers are comfortable and no longer wish for the pain of God’s Word to plow the fields of the heart.

It is a true blessing to have the fellowship with several men who serve Christ with a limp and who love the Lord enough to speak some uncomfortable truths into my life.  Ravenhill would ask how much you really love someone if all you tell a person is what they want to hear.  How deeply am I convicted by what I hear on Sunday and in my daily time alone with the Lord or what I sing that I am compelled to action and intercession both for the world and for my local body of believers?

It is very difficult most days and a struggle to ask God to continue the painful process He is doing in my heart but I shake within my soul to think of standing before Holy God and realizing all the riches I had in Christ and the embarrassment and mourning that will overtake me while what I did with it is judged.  I cannot even finish typing this without praying for you.

Is there too much noise in life?  Are the desires and temptations of this world your greatest source of pain?  What has God spoke to your heart today?  Are you driven to repentance and time quietly before Him listening and begging for revival?

I am.  My life has not testified to the power of Christ.  I have fashioned some false teaching that somehow what I want or plan affects or shapes his desire and plans.  I hate you world.  I hate what you stand for.  I hate the lies you tell.  I hate the values you portray.  You are a whore who is exposed in broad daylight with nothing hidden from God.

God forgive me today for the feeble faith of my life’s testimony.  I have made a mockery of your name.  I have profaned you.  My heart has offered unacceptable praise that bounces off the basement of heaven.  I long for you to intercept my plans today.  I want you to be glorified in me.  I want to die for the cause of Christ.

New lessons from dirty diapers and throw up

I got a call from my sister in law early part of last week. She was going out of town for several days and her baby sitter plans had fell through. Her girls are ten, three, and one. It has been a LONG time since I have cleaned dirty diapers much less watched over kids for several days. At first, I didn’t want to do it. I felt inadequate. Fear was rising up in me from all the what ifs and scenarios of things going wrong. Due to my sin and consequences of my sin, I am still looking for a job. At the time of her call, I had $4.69 in the bank. There were times in the previous two weeks when I could not meet someone for lunch, go to church, or to celebrate recovery on Tuesday night due to limited finances. After talking with my sister, I decided that if this is how the Lord was trying to bless me who am I to say no because it is not how or what I thought should happen.

I challenge you to find one time in Scripture where any person other than Jesus Christ saw his or her plan work out just as they had imagined. Did Moses imagine the work of the red sea? What about Jonah being saved from the sea by a giant fish swallowing him? Do you think Saul thought he would encounter Jesus Christ on the road Damascus? Any idea what was in store for Zacheus when he climbed the tree? What was Gideon thinking when he hid in the well? Did the prostitute Rahab ever think she would be in the lineage of Jesus Christ after the life she lived as a harlot? Then there was the one little boy who brought his small lunch of bread and fish. Jesus took it, gave thanks, then fed the thousands gathered and even had left overs.

Here is a big moment of transparency for me with my two greatest struggles in recovery. I care what others think and have placed my value in their opinion or appreciation of things I have done. Secondly, in the past I have attempted to use my survival skills from abuse to predetermine any outcome that I possibly could. I based my obedience to the Lord on whether or not He was going to use me as I thought was best. How foolish and wicked of me.

There is no part of God that needs any part of me to be ALL that He is. However, I need Him to be who He has called me to be. Psalm 139 talks of how the Lord knew me before I was born. He saw me formed in the secret place. Before I ever breathed, He knew the number of my days. I cannot hide from Him. The darkest night is like daylight to Him. I love what Ezekiel tells the people of Israel about their rebellion and God restoring them in Chapter 36:22-23

“Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. ²³ I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Sovereign LORD, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes.

When we talk about all things working for our good or God knowing the plans to prosper us giving us a future and a hope, that future, that good, or that hope could be the sufferings of Christ that will bring only God the Father glory. I am not attempting to compare dirty diapers to Christ sufferings but Baby Lily through out a green atomic stink blowup that had me on my knees at 3 am asking God to give me strength and endurance. That is not a joke.

I have the privilege of meeting with a very dear friend each week. He reminds me that one of the goals in God’s economy is for us to live out God’s glory whether anyone every notices or sees us showing compassion, offering a kind word, pursuing grace full speed, or simply keeping our mouth shut and laying our cares at the feet of Jesus.

Zachariah 4:10 “Who despises the day of small things?

Whether it is a dirty diaper, folding chairs, rebuking a gossip, praying for your enemies, or giving the last two pennies to the Lord, Do not despise the small things because that is where God seeks to lay the foundation in our hearts and life.