joined

But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.

1 Corinthians 6:17

I came to You, Lord

broken… needy… lost

and You met me

You were scarred… risen… God

wrapping me in forgiving arms

clothing me in righteousness

You took me

as I was

and made me

what You always meant me to be

Your Holy Spirit

intimately, fully filled my soul

and Your Holy Son became

both Savior and Brother

as transformed by Your Spirit

in my spirit

joined to Christ, in Christ,

I now live for Christ

My Father ran to me

prodigal though I am

and brought me home

celebrating, accepting, reinstating

all that was broken

all that I needed

all that was lost

now joined by Christ

joined in the Spirit

joined to the Father

my new identity is

child of God

Grace, mercy, and the start of a new year

Answer me, O LORD, for your steadfast love is good;

according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.

Psalm 69:16

On the cusp of a new year with just two days left in 2024 I’m reflective. Of course, in a sense, a new year is just the rollover of a number… a new calendar hanging on the wall. But there is a time of reflection that I find myself doing… and 2024 has a whole lot of reflection to ponder. Taking my cues from this scripture, I will let God’s Word guide how I frame a few reflective thoughts.

First… God’s steadfast love (grace) is always good. I’ve seen His grace flow to me and flood my life in so many ways. Here are two of them:

• Grace helps me minister His grace. There have been some really rough  counseling  ministry situations God has placed me as a pastor to shepherd and care for. And I have tried to keep God’s grace central to those situations. He has been doing redeeming work and changing hearts, but it has been hard. I’d be drained if not for the exhilarating experience of His inexplicable grace.
• Grace received by me in a restart. 2023 was all about grief. 2024 saw me moving forward with my story. No more widowed, but carrying all that past into a new marriage. Going forward, with grace, by grace, in grace, with all those decades behind me so that the new grace of a new marriage might be a big part of God’s steadfast love shown to me. It has been truly amazing and a personal revitalization for me. It is a continuous place of God working graciously in me.

Secondly… God’s abundant mercy has forgiven me and remade me this year. I know I did not deserve the life I have. He has shown me incredible mercy so that I too can be merciful.

• I need mercy to help me be better. The challenge of everything becoming new means that some of my old needs to flex with it. Keeping the old and embracing the new is a tight dance. A new spouse, new family members, a new home, a new kind of lifestyle have all been used to purge out crusty old attitudes and patterns. Mercy falls rich in the newness.
• I need mercy to share with others. All the new things, which are really great, are also touched with a level of brokenness. That is to be expected in a fallen world. The gospel has to fill me and flow into the new. Mercy has to lead me. Thank God His mercy is ABUNDANT going into 2025!

My Judge

For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.

1 Corinthians 4:4

I try my best.

It’s not enough.

I feel condemned.

My guilt holds up.

Conscience convinces.

I’m wrong… again.

I’m incapable

of turning it around again.

As much as I try…

in good intent I fail.

And I’ve done much less

than righteousness could avail.

I’m unhappy, unable to please

or help another.

I can’t save myself.

Why even bother?

But Jesus came

to clear my way.

Damning night

He turned to welcoming day.

He bears my current shame.

He took the guilt away.

Uncondemned, by Him I stay.

I have a Savior.

He looks at me.

Declares me pure

as only He can be.

Free from judgement because

He took my place.

He pours out on me

unending grace.

Answering to people,

I let them down.

Looking to Jesus,

I turn around.

He is my only Judge.

He is my only Friend.

I’ll look only to Him

until journey’s end.

a generous blessing

I have been young, and now am old,

yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken

or his children begging for bread.

Psalm 37:25

David composed this verse of a worship song toward the end of his life. It is thus a lifelong observation captured in this song. In all his days he could claim that he had seen God always take care of His people. God does not forsake the righteous… although sometimes it just might feel this way as we learn through discipline and trial. Yet there is this constant: God is helping His people at all times.

In fact, God takes care of us so well that we are equipped to be able to be used by God to take care of other people. Look at the very next verse of the song for how it all is a picture of God’s generous love: “He (the righteous man of verse 25) is ever lending generously, and his children become a blessing (Psalm 37:26).

It is true: God blesses us to become blessings ourselves to others. There is always supposed to be a flowing stream of blessing that is fed by the endless churning spring of God’s generous grace and provision. God supples and we share in His gracious gifts to all with whom we happen to come into contact.  God intends the impact to be generational.

Lord,

In this Christmas season of giving, may Your generous blessing flow through me to others I pray. You have never forsaken me. You have indeed given so much to me. May I share Your grace, goodness, and provision generously with others as You have so graciously given all for me through Christ.

Amen

Strength, courage, obedience, and consistency

Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.

Joshua 1:7

The secret to Joshua’s success as a leader is found here at the beginning of the book that details how God helped Israel conquer Canaan. God would use Joshua to lead His people into His promised land. They would, under Joshua’s administration, come to fully experience all that God had promised to them. There were four elements to Joshua’s successful leadership.

1. He would need to be strong. God kept reminding Joshua of this. It wasn’t going to be easy to overtake the Canaanites. But God would use Joshua’s strength. God would use Israel’s strength. God would be their strength. Claiming the promises of God requires faith AND effort.

2. He would have to be courageous. There would be giants to take down. There would be city walls to topple. This means the task to obey God was attended with fears, anxieties, and uncertainties. When God asks us to follow and obey, there will be fear. It takes courage to let God lead us beyond our fears.

3. He would have to know and obey God’s Law. Joshua would need to trust and follow the Law of God given by Moses. His generation would be the first one entrusted with following God’s Word. God promised to reward faithfulness to what He commanded. Thus God was the true commanding general of Israel’s forces. We win by following.

4. He would need to be consistent. Joshua could not deviate from strength, courage, or obedience. That means God expected Joshua to be tempted to turn right or left. But these three charges up front as God gave Joshua His call would guide the leader in faithfulness. Every day God is glorified when His people simply stay on task. 

Lord,

Help me to live in Your strength, to be courageous over my fears, to know and follow Your Word, and to stay on task, I pray!

Amen

nothing except Jesus

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

1 Corinthians 2:2

Paul did not try to impress the Corinthian church with cultural or philosophical preaching. He was not about “relevancy first”. And Paul could have chosen relevancy as the first priority. I mean, from scripture we know he engaged philosophers at the Athens Areopagus with masterful insight. We know Paul understood his culture, was well-versed in the thinkers and the teaching of his times. Yet he disregarded cultural relevancy in favor of gospel fluency. He preached Jesus and stuck to that script. He clung to the cross.

It would be equally wise to remember Paul’s preaching priority today. We know we live in a world that intellectually ridicules Christian faith. In the cases where those arguments call out inconsistencies (ie priestly pedophilia… greed and manipulation by televangelists… abuse of spiritual power, etc) that is actually a good thing God is using to sanctify His church. But when the culture attacks the gospel itself or when the popular Christian deconstruction movement mocks Jesus, we need to boldly hold to the truth of the gospel in Jesus. And His death on the cross is the center of that truth. When the cross makes someone uncomfortable, there is room to press in! What a doubting, confused, and hateful world needs is the reality of a Savior’s love, death, burial, and resurrection. And they need to hear His call to repent, believe, receive His cleansing, and follow Him as Master.

Lord,

May Your people know nothing compared to our commitment to the gospel. Will the reality of our need for a Savior, of Your sacrifice at the cross, of Your victory over death and hell at the resurrection, of Your position as our Lord whose Word we obey… Will that be our distinctive? May all that be our constant and consistent message! It’s all we need. It’s all this world needs. May we preach Jesus, and Him crucified.

Amen

A prayer to my God

See now that I, even I, am he,

and there is no god beside me;

I kill and I make alive;

I wound and I heal;

and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

Deuteronomy 32:39

Lord,

I read this song of Moses today and I recognize the ancient faith that trusts Your complete control over all there is or ever will be in the universe You spoke into existence. There is only You. And as much as I may think my life is the center of everything, I must bow to You, I who am a mere fraction of a speck of dust in Your vast domain. You are the Lord of it all. In my world, You bring life and death. Your bring health and wounds. You design weakness to show Your strength. You work in sorrows to bring joy. And only You are the perspective of strength, healing, and purpose to rise above the dissonant notes of the song of my life.

My God,

I only need You. I only bow to You. I want to only trust You. I ask for Your mercy and forgiveness because I still often live for my own sense of control, I worship my false gods, or I live with my needs at the center of my life. Help me fully to trust You Who kill and make alive, Who will wound me and heal me, and Who will, in Christ, always be my deliverance.

Amen

the wisdom and the folly

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

1 Corinthians 1:21

In the wisdom of God

He sent His Son

wisest man to ever live

eternal truth and life to give

it is Jesus’ name we proclaim

for His glory and the shame

The message of the gospel appears

foolish to those who hear

the cross is not worldly wise

it finds no acceptance in their eyes

but is often sniffed at with disdain

mocking Jesus and His name

But it is this folly that we preach

and God’s wisdom will still reach

those lost in confusion and sin

the gospel will help them enter in

the wisdom of God will rescue

those who call out, Lord, to You

Lord, please save those who will hear

and listen as Jesus will draw near

call them to reject those worldly ways

filled with Your Spirit, fix their gaze

on Jesus, the wisdom of God to see

them safely Yours for eternity

the One and the Way

Then I said, “Behold, I have come;

in the scroll of the book it is written of me:

I delight to do your will, O my God;

your law is within my heart.”

Psalm 40:7-8

There is One Who says these words of commitment with perfection. One and only One is the true fulfillment of the prophetic praise of this passage. Jesus is the One that the scroll of the book continually points toward in any place we read the Word of God. He is the One of Whom this is written. Jesus delighted to do God’s will, to give Himself for us because the burnt offering and sacrifices would never be enough (Psalm 40:6). Jesus is the One Who fulfilled the Law as from His heart flowed the true meaning of all God’s Law. Jesus is the One Who could say all this.

There is also a Way explained in these two verses. It is a Way that is better than the sacrifices of the Old Testament. It is a Way that underlies all of scripture. It is a Way to true peace and satisfaction. It is a Way to find joy. It is the Way to do God’s will and always please Him. It is a Way not just to obey God, but to have God’s Will and His Word flow out from a transformed heart. And that Way is also only found in Jesus.

Lord,

I come to You today recognizing that only Jesus can show me how to live. And in the life He lived, and still lives for me, I find the way to pleasing You, It is all in You, Lord Jesus! I have found the One and the Way.

Amen

prayer for today

For I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give.

Deuteronomy 31:21b

Lord,

I have a day plan in front of me. I believe I’ll talk with broken and hurting men, hoping as You enable me to encourage them to find grace, forgiveness, and peace in You. At least that’s what my calendar tells me I have planned. And I plan to study Your Word, prepare a teaching series to build up Your saints in their most holy faith, helping the flock in my care to grow in faith, in love for Jesus, and in living like Jesus to the people You have put us all around. At least I hope to gain the insight to teach Your truth and show Your ways to Your people.

Yet, my plans, informed as I hope they are by the gospel, are totally outside my control. You know every second of this coming day more than I can possible anticipate. You know what I am inclined to do. And You take that into account in Your sovereign, gracious demonstration of Your love for me.

You know what I need to know today. So teach me in Your Word as I prayerfully seek Your truth.

You know what I need to believe today. So work by Your Holy Spirit to increase my faith.

You know how I need to feel today. Grip my heart with an awestruck awareness of You. Calm these anxious thoughts. Heal my broken, weary sadness. Encourage me where I am discouraged. Strengthen me where I have no power or desire to go on.

You know where I will be tempted today. Guard me with scripture coming to mind. Confront my selfish thoughts which are always with me. Pull me into a love for You and for others that overcomes the drag of my self-centered mess. Forgive my trespasses and help me to forgive others who may hurt me.

My inclinations are Your intimate understandings! And so I commit this day asking You to draw me to You, Lord… to Your ways… Your will… for Your glory alone!

Amen

Grace with you

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.

Galatians 6:18

Any gift I could give you

simply cannot compare

to the grace God gives us

in the life we share

I love this life with you

together we serve

a God Who bestows us

with grace undeserved

We worship a Savior

Who loved us in His death

and gave us all grace

to His very last breath

The Father then raised Him

all sin to erase

now in Jesus forgiven

our spirits know grace

A family now united

in Christ we can stand

with the gospel commission

we share grace in our hands

Our spirits are strengthened

our souls in repair

with the gospel on our lips

this grace we will share

I love what God gave us

as in Jesus we thrive

His grace ever with us

His song in us alive

Until heaven is around us

until His kingdom come

may grace keep us together… forward

as God’s will here is done

Overtaken

And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God.

Deuteronomy 28:2

There is no doubt in my mind that my life is overtaken by blessing. It may not be anyone else’s vision of a perfect life, but looking back over six decades I am humbled by the blessings God daily gives to me. And the fact that blessings also are right with me in difficulties is the greatest blessing I can know. Life is hard. God is so very good. Life is a blessing when those two things are what I know! Bear with this paradoxical language for a moment…

Blessing has overtaken me in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The blessing overflows into all my other experiences. The fact that Jesus died for me, bore my sin, guilt, and sorrow on the cross so that I could know abundant and eternal life through Christ’s forgiveness is my defining center. So much good grace overflows from that truth. It is like a crystal spring of blessing flowing up from the center of my soul. The gospel overtakes everything!

Here is what the blessing of the gospel overtakes:

• My own struggles with sin. I can find grace as I confess, forsake, and obey what Jesus shows me and what the Spirit leads me by the Word of God’s instruction.
• My own sorrows and grief. I’ve had my share, but I do not live in grief and sorrow. Because of God’s blessing I can live beyond loss. And grief still visits me everyday in some way or another, but the loved ones I have been separated from who are with Christ are not lost to me! They are just ahead of me! I remember God’s blessing and know that I will see them all again as surely as their memories are still with me.
• My own challenges and hardships. I live in a broken world. And there are hard things I face personally, and in pastoral ministry. Despite the reality that relationships, following the Lord Jesus, and making a living are all hard work, I am extraordinarily blessed! And that blessing compels me to want to generously pour out God’s grace in me to others in ministry, fellowship, friendship, love, relationships, good neighboring, gospel proclamation, and showing the kindness of Christ.

Thank You Lord for the real experience of the promise of Your blessing overtaking me! I am indeed carried by the current of Your grace! Amen

In step

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Galatians 5:25

When we follow the Word of God (as Paul taught here) we will also follow the Spirit of God as He leads us. The ESV rightly translates the last phrase of this verse as “keep in step with the Spirit.” it means so much more than just “walk in the Spirit” as other English translations have read. The Greek word is used to describe following in line, marching in step, like a precision march of soldiers, or if we want a more modern image, a marching band or drill team. The Spirit sets our cadence and direction. The Lord wants us to embrace and understand this powerful image.

All my life I have heard sincere Christians give vague, fuzzy, touchy-freely descriptions of the Holy Spirit’s “leading”. It is common for Christians to say “I just felt led”, or “I feel this is what God wants me to do”. But that sort of “out of focus” thinking is not at all how the New Testament describes how the Holy Spirit of God leads us. I mean right here in Galatians five there is crystal clear description with specific wording on how God’s Holy Spirit keeps us from gratifying the flesh (Galatians 5:16-17). There is a specific list of fifteen selfish, feelings-based desires (bookended interestingly enough by actions of sexuality outside the bounds of God’s design: and we think we post-moderns are so sexually expressive!), that would never be evidence of the Spirit’s leading. It is clear their is fleshly, sinful evidence of a heart not led by the Spirit of God.

Instead, the Holy Spirit makes it possible for a new internal character to come into visible display as fruit in our lives. It is this nine-fold fruit that lines out our marching steps. We keep in step with the Holy Spirit as we exhibit Christ-like character: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Those are the steps He leads us to follow. That’s the line we follow. That’s the cadence we hear. Those are the steps that set our pace, rhythm, and direction.

slave / son / heir

So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Galatians 4:7

What I was:

born enslaved

caught in sin

mastered by selfish choices

unable to break free

bound to wrong

dead to God

a miserable slave

who could not know God or please Him

What Christ did:

born in the right time

sent by the Father

to become my new Master

Jesus broke me free

He defeated sin

made me alive through Jesus

no longer a slave but a son

I can know God and please Him

What soon will be:

reborn an heir

bound for glory

serving my Master… my Father

set free to represent Jesus

clothed in righteousness not my own

alive like I’ve never known

a praise-singing son

I will be with God

and His people — pleasing Him and pleased in Him — FOREVER!

It is good that the Bible says I’m bad.

But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

Galatians 3:22

So does the Bible talk about sin so much to fill us with a sense of guilt? Is God just trying to bash us into depression? In other words, is it a bad thing that scripture has so much to say about the bad things humans do… things that displease a holy God? Not really. It is a good thing. But there needs to be some explanation, which Paul masterfully teaches in Galatians three, despite faithless attempts to paint Paul as some sort of warped, puritanical killjoy. You see, when the Bible shows us sin, it is NOT to make us holier-than-thou or judgmental of others. Self-righteousness is one of the worst symptoms of faulty biblical interpretation. Sadly, many get it wrong and so those outside of Christianity and some within it suffer with the delusion that Christians are always prudish, unyielding, and finger-pointing hypocrites. We are not to become self-righteous when reading what the Bible says about human evil.

But it is also a horrendous hermeneutic to internalize guilt over sin and fill my self with self-loathing when God confronts sin as we read the scripture. That self-loathing is just another type of judgmentalism and legalism that twists the gospel and corrupts the truth. God never meant for us to beat ourselves up over our sin. It would change nothing, Yes, I should feel guilt, but I also have hope in God. He had to change it all, but His grace!

Paul insists here that Scripture makes strong, declarative pronouncements against our sin, not because God is a stern judge wanting to throw the book at us, but instead, it highlights the beauty of the sweet offer of forgiveness He brought us in our Savior. We have to have bad news (we are powerless and locked-up in our sin) before we can embrace the good news (there is deliverance from the penalty of sin, the pervasiveness of sin, and the power of sin in Jesus! In eternity He removes us from the presence of sin forever). 

And that really is a good thing. The way the Bible shows the enormity of my offense against God magnifies the greater glory of the amazing grace that lasts forever in my great eternal salvation brought about by the atoning death of Christ and the declarative, authoritative, delivering resurrection of Jesus from the dead! The promise is now given to those who believe: Sin is forgiven! We are no longer imprisoned because Jesus is the Risen Savior! Amen!