Taking His Time

There is an interesting story in John 5 about God and His timing. For one man Jesus is 38 years late, for others His timing is ALL wrong, and still others he doesn't even seem to give them the time of day. The paralytic for 38 years seems to be telling Jesus how it isn't fair that he can't get into the water quick enough and that is why God hasn't healed him. The Pharisees and Sadducees wanted to kill Jesus for a large part because he was violating their laws regarding the Sabbath.  If he would have just waited til the next day to heal the man, a large part of their stumbling block would have been removed.  The roman official who wants Jesus to come and heal his child who is near death doesn't get Jesus to go anywhere.  Jesus doesn't go to his son, but tells the man his son is healed.

It is interesting to me how much difficulty we have in allowing God to be Lord of our time.  We spend so much of our time with us striving to be in control of one of the most difficult areas to be in control.  We set out each day not to be controlled by those 24 hours, but instead for us to be in control.  I am forced to acknowledge a profound truth that we ultimately find healing only when we allow Jesus to be Lord of all of our lives.  That includes our time, our health, our pains and disappointments.

Let our eyes look to heaven for our strength and hope.  There will be no more tears and the body will be transformed into the likeness of Christ with glorified heavenly bodies. We will be freed physically.  There will be no more sin, pain, or tears... we will be healed spiritually and emotionally.  There is one last piece I often forget, and that is that there will be no more time.  The Light source will be Christ himself.  There will be no darkness, and there will be no time.  We will have eternity to be one with our Lord and He will have set us free from time for all eternity!

Grey hair and God's Glory

While I do have some grey hair, my hair was pretty much white after sanding down 8 walls with a pole sander. Thankfully I was able to borrow an electric sander that connects to a shop vac from a friend doing some work next door. This sanding portion of the project has been by far the most difficult and messy. I think there is a 1" layer of dust that has settled throughout our entire house. Though it has been the hardest, it has been a fruitful time for the Lord to stir my heart to realize spiritual truths that related to this task.

I had a young man, who is about to go off to college, over to help me apply the first layer of texture (2 whole boxes worth). The Lord had impressed on my heart that I needed to discharge the duties of my ministry in this young man's life. The Lord had blessed me with the relationship and the vantage point to be able to speak truth though windows that the Lord had opened to me. I feared for my friend that the desire for independence and the desire to be respected by his peers had blended with pridefulness and was blinding him to even greater dangers that lie ahead on the college campus.

How cool was it to hear that God had already begun revealing many of the very things I felt led to discuss with him. It truly was a blessed time of conversation, that left my friend humbled and truly desiring to take steps to seek forgiveness for many acts of pridefulness that had impacted the relationships in his life. He even desired for his parents to be a barometer helping him recognize pride in his life before it ran out of control. An 18 yr old seeking to humble himself before God and his parents is truly a miracle!

I thought that was all the lessons for the day, but I was wrong. As I put in my ear plugs to run the sander and shop vac to smooth out a few "blemishes" that I couldn't get with the pole sander, God began to teach me about my own pride. I looked over MY walls with pride having finished texturing 8 walls and having sanded them down with the pole sander. I almost made up the texture to be blown in 'cause this should be quick. Well as I got good lighting, and really began inspecting the walls, I was amazed that whatever wall was right in front of my face was covered in bubbles, scratches, grooves, bumps, divits, and ripples. When only a few feet away I didn't see any of that. I couldn't see the places where I had failed to have a smooth surface without blemish, until I looked at it carefully and up close.

As I had spent time helping my friend to see the areas that pride had created blemishes in his life and relationships, I was confronted with the question, "When was the last time you really looked at the walls in your life slowly, carefully, and with the Light of God revealing your pridefulness and sin? Would you pray for me and consider joining me as I let God shine His Light on the walls of my life and reveal any (better said ALL) of the blemishes and bubbles, scratches, grooves, bumps, divits, and ripples of pride that Christ desires to sand down and cover over with His blood and His holiness. Just as sanding the walls took hours and get messy, I am sure this will take some time and looks to be pretty messy as well. Praise to the Glory of His Grace that He answers such prayers!

Ro 7:24-25 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Got Joy?

Does God need to answer a prayer that you are praying in order for you to have joy in your life right now?

Does something need to change at work or in a relationship for you to have a little more peace?

Is your joy completely overflowing in your life right now?


I have a friend who really challenged my thinking when he shared a story. The Lord had used me to help him see the cross again as the center of his thinking. He had a friend that was really getting discouraged because God was taking too long answering some of his prayers. Prayers and work dedicated to good things, but not seeing the results yet. My friend shared what he asked his friend. "Did Jesus need to do more on the cross in order for you to be satisfied?" Wow, that question hits hard. We have such a tendency to move right past the cross on to "more pressing" issues, when the source of joy and satisfaction has already been bought and paid for.

I have related what Christ did on the cross to an analogy of my father wrestling with a person holding a gun to me. If he gave his life in order to save mine, would I still demand more from my father? Would I get mad at my father for not being there when I missed him or things were difficult? The clear answer is no! So an imperfect father, saving only my physical life receives a lifetime response of gratitude for his heroic act, but Jesus heroic sacrifice of His life for mine receives anger, contempt, rebellion, and disappointment when He doesn't give me more than His very life. Is my heart really that hard?

It is at the cross where Christ demonstrated the greatest measure of Grace from God to me. That Jesus would become my very sin, that God would pour out His wrath against my sin on Christ, and that I would become the Righteousness of God through Christ. That the love and acceptance that would be shown to Christ is shown to me. God sees me as righteous, blameless, holy, and as His child. I am given the spirit of God himself as a gift to seal my soul one day to be made into the image of Christ. I am given a gift more valuable than all the treasure of the entire earth, and I am left empty and dismayed because I feel he has shorted me the equivalent of one corn flake out of my bowl of cereal. The gift of the whole world is cast aside, because of the equivalent of one flake of cereal that I feel should have been added to my bowl.

Paul asked for the thorn in his flesh to be removed three times, and the Lord's answer was that His grace was sufficient. I never had considered that the grace that God showed me through Jesus on the cross was sufficient to overcome any difficulty or disappointment in life. I always assumed that it was future demonstrations of graciousness that would be shown to Paul and me that made His grace sufficient. I can see clearly that God continued to show Paul an unmerited favor and kindness after that point, but I believe God was turning Paul's eyes back to the cross! That Paul would know nothing but Christ and Him crucified! May we all return to the cross as the source of strength and joy! For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have ever lasting life.

Lord, let us not get so far from the cross that we feel we need something more from you to have joy today in our lives for you have already given us immeasurably more than we could have ever asked or imagined. Let our lives be lived as our response of gratitude for what was done on our behalf on the cross. Here am I, be glorified through me today!

Who needs more Grace

I having been writing about our need to live life in the shadow of the cross. How it is so easy to drift so far from the cross that we can't even see that it is our ongoing sin that causes us to still need the forgiveness that He purchased on the cross. It is the same pridefulness that causes us to know that we were saved by grace, but think we can become like Christ by working real hard at it (be sanctified by our works). Totally failing to recognize that it will be the gracious work of God that will change our lives more and more into the image of Christ. We grow as Christians to think we are no longer in need of the grace of God in our lives.

While chewing on all of this that has been covered in my previous blogs, I am left pondering the question. Who should profess a greater ongoing need for the grace of God in their life? The person who is just trusting in Christ for the first time or the person who understood their need at salvation, but has now tried to work out their becoming more like Christ with greater confidence in their own abilities and works. What I am getting at is the question of who should profess greater need to receive from God the very thing they could never deserve. Is it the person who walked far away from the cross who has seen it up close previously, or the person who has never seen it up close. Who is in a greater need of grace?

(Lk 12:47-48) 47 And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. 48 But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.

Look at it from the perspective of Jesus treatment of different people. Was he not harshest on the pharisees because they had already received so much grace and then turned away from it. You might be thinking that they didn't receive grace they received the law. Was it not by grace that God chose the Israelites to be the people that He revealed himself to and through. Their receiving the revelation of God was the greatest demonstration of grace prior to Christ's death on the cross. So who needed more grace the pharisee who had already been entrusted with much grace but did not act according to His will or the gentile who did not know?

I know it is like discussing which is greater infinity or infinity plus one. The grace meter is maxed out for both. But I am trying to come through a window that is even hard for our prideful hearts to close. Closed to the point we are not humbled by the grace that we Christians have already been shown. That window is that those who have been shown much grace, immeasurable grace in fact, fail to show grace towards others while still needing grace in their own lives.

We see this demonstrated all throughout scripture and life. The story in Matthew 18 of the person who owed the king ten thousand talents (An unpayable debt). He was shown mercy and grace, but then fails to show mercy and grace to the person who owes him 100 shillings. His need for being shown mercy and grace is now even greater than before because he didn't appreciate what was done for him to the point it gripped his life. Are we not like this person when we have been saved by grace and then act as though we no longer need grace? When we struggle to show grace to others. When we puff ourselves up with pride convincing ourselves that God must be impressed with our works. When we struggle to share the gospel of God's grace with others and our lives are not gripped by the mercy and grace we have been shown. When we fail to live in such a way that points back to His mercy and grace that He showed us. Are we not in need of greater grace.

• Romans 5:20-21 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

As believers entrusted with the gospel of God's grace through Jesus Christ and having moved away from this point, are we not the ones in need of the greatest amount of grace! I am convicted by the fact that I was entrusted with the gospel by an incredible act of mercy and grace. Yet often my response to this is to struggle to share the gospel with others. That God would be so moved to choose me as his instrument of grace and continue to work on my prideful heart that is so prone to wandering away and not sharing mercy and grace with others.

The answer to my question that I am left with is....it is me. For I know the father's will and often do not act according to His will. I have seen the cross and then walk further away from it. I have received the gospel and act as though I have not often. Ouch!!!

Lord, I pray that I would in your mercy and grace be brought back to the foot of the cross today. That I would be forced to face the shear magnitude of mercy that was shown to me by Christ taking on the full punishment of my sin. That I would be gripped by the grace of God that Christ, the son of God, left heaven to die in my place, that He might live through my life through the power of the Holy Spirit I have so graciously received. Lead and direct my steps today that I might be a doer of your incredible will. Have mercy on me, that I might be a good steward of your mercy. Please show me more of your grace that has already been entrusted to me, that I might show it to others according to your will.

I know what would fix you up

I can't believe I have never been able to see this. If I went up to you and informed you that I already had what you needed and then tried to convince you of your need. You might be a little resistant to agree with my better than you posturing in the sales pitch. The further I got away from my own need for the cross, the more one sided the sales pitch for Jesus became. I am so past needing the cross, but you on the other hand need the cross to get your life right.

The more I have become aware of my ongoing deep need for the gospel of Jesus Christ in my own life, the more I realized my pridefulness had to be a turn off when I shared the gospel. In fact it was my pride that led me further away from the cross, and thus if I was talking about that cross way over there that you need. Would I not only be able to communicate about this subject in a prideful way.

Here is the beauty of my growing in my need for the cross and the good news of the gospel in my own life. It has made my words less offensive and have allowed Jesus convicting of sin to be the only part that is offensive. I read this week that we are not permitted to be offensive in any way in sharing the gospel, but are to allow only the conviction of sin to be the offense. If I say that I need to respond to Jesus dieing on the cross and paying for my sins by turning away from my sins in repentance and trust in Jesus Christ. I can humbly say to the other person, that they need the same exact thing that I need. They may not agree to trust Christ, but they won't feel as though I was judging them and preaching down my nose at them. By including myself. By agreeing to the same great need. I remove my pride as the offensive part of the gospel.

I am reminded of when I had the opportunity to share the gospel in a barbecue restaurant in Richmond one Sunday after I had preached on the message of grace. The lady said at the end, "How you said, what you said, has really challenged me." Should we not be humbled by the cross as we talk about the cross? Should we not acknowledge our own need for our sins to be forgiven when we talk to others about their need for their sins to be forgiven? Should we not be moved by the gospel of grace when we desire to see someone else moved by the gospel of grace?

Lord, I do pray that my brokenness by the cross and the gospel would cause others to consider their response to the cross of Christ and the good news of the gospel!! That I would be given the privelege of saying, "Come follow me to the cross." Amina!

Turned Over

I was reminded of the money changers in the temple that had their tables overturned by Christ. All that they knew and placed their confidence in was turned over and spilled out on the ground. It is funny how often people who travel to Uganda and other places to serve the Lord feel this way. Feel as though the Lord has overturned their cart and all of the things that they had been placing their trust in are dumped out on the ground. Only to return home with this feeling of being very exposed and almost a need to gather all of their items up again and place them back in the cart. For me seeing how God blew up my cart with the cross has left me feeling exposed and vulnerable and torn between part of me wanting to pick up the stuff on the ground and part of me not wanting to pick up anything but my cross and follow Christ. But taking up my cross means leaving all of the things that I do control lieing on the ground as I follow Christ. The grace of God draws me near and bids me come and die, that I may truly live.




Being broken by the cross to the point that it completely overwhelmed me. The magnitude of the grace that I was shown turned me inside out. It burned inside me to the point it caused me to ache because of what was done for me. To the point it felt as though I could not stand it any longer. Yet it is with joy I long to be set on fire again. It is like when we would play with grabbing an electric fence when we were kids. We would feel the electricity go through your entire body and you would not be able to control it. To feel the power of God pulsing through you, yet costing my ability to have control. It was painful, yet an exhilarating experience. I don't know if any of this makes sense to any one else, but I am trying to process something that I have struggled to make sense of and put into words. I have even found myself longing to relive that experience. There is part of me that desires to return to that experience, instead of the cross again. The experience is safer than the cross, because I lived through it. Yet I fight through this desire as well, and must just ask for God to draw me near to the cross again.

It is my prayer that Christ would be lifted up, that He would draw all men unto Himself. That men's hearts would be broken and set alive at the same time by the power of the cross. To the praise of the glory of His grace!

A reckless love

I have been studying the story of the prodigal son. This passage has so come alive for me that it is often on my mind throughout the day. I love when the Lord is revealing Himself and His heart to us in these ways. I am having an OCD moment. Overwhelming Christ Disturbance. The story in Luke 15 is commonly referred to as the story of the Prodigal Son. I see the message of the gospel is that in the face of our pride filled pursuits that God has pursued us with a gracious, overwhelming, abounding, reckless love! We even pridefully think the story is about us, when it is all about God. The first parable wasn't about the sheep, it was about the shepherd, the second parable wasn't about the coin, it was about the woman looking for it. The third parable isn't about either of the lost sons, it is about the father who graciously loves His sons. It is exciting to see God working and overwhelming me and others with His gracious love. What joy we should have in sharing this story with others and see it begin tearing down their walls built up by pride.

I was at the pool today with the kids when a lady who owns a bar was pointed out to me, by an old friend, as being somebody who, "you know, really needs the Lord." It is comments like this that spur me on even more to share the incredible love of Christ, to replace the rejection and possible condemnation that was there before. I visited with her for a while and found out a little of the story that has led her and her family from Chicago to live in Tomball. As we visited she shared that she had been struggling with her health and hadn't been to work in a couple weeks. I told her that I felt God putting it on my heart to pray for her and asked her if that would be ok. She said it was fine, to which I asked is it ok if I could pray right now, which also received the response of, "its fine." I began praying for her physical healing from the great physician when I found myself boldly praying for her desire to be spiritually healed and restored to the Lord. I don't remember everything I said, but praying that the gracious love of God would work out her healing and restoration was some of what I prayed. After finishing the prayer I looked again towards the face that was once a hardened shell now softened by tears flowing down her cheeks. As soon as I finished her two sons walked up and there was awkwardness as she hurriedly regained her composure. They left shortly after, but it was amazing to see the battering ram of God's grace hit against the walls around a heart, only to see God's grace abound even more.....


That None May Boast Eph 2:8-9