Tag Archives: love

April 26, 2013 · 6:18 AM

Where Do You See Jesus?

We made the five hour drive from Port au Prince to Gonaives yesterday. The trucks aren’t big enough to house the entire team so many of us rode in the beds. I prefer to ride back there since it helps me to take in the sights, sounds and smells. It brings me closer to the country when I see the people interacting in their daily lives. There is something particularly humbling when you drive through tent cities.

The tents are made of tarp and are duct taped together. Thousands of them side by side in a field or on the side of a mountain. Their homes were destroyed by the earthquake a few years ago and they can’t afford to get a new house. The unemployment rate here is astronomical. Those who do work make less than $5 a day. People walk the streets selling what they find or grow. Doing what they can to make a living.

We stopped at the mass grave site where tens of thousands of bodies are buried. So many died during the earthquake that they couldn’t embalm or bury the dead. They drug the bodies into the street, burned them to prevent the smell and carried the bones to this site. As we stood there, I couldn’t help but wonder, “How many knew Jesus?” Who had come before to tell them of His love? Who had obeyed?

When we arrived in Gonaives, we stopped at the guest house to drop off our luggage and then headed to the orphanage. When we arrived, the gate was closed. TJ, the missionary with us, looked through the hole and knocked on the gate. As they came to open it, the children were shouting his name. It has been months since he was here. He ran and hid behind the truck. The gate slid open, a rush of kids came pouring out and their smiles quickly went away. They couldn’t find him.

When he appeared from behind the truck, 30 kids attacked him with huge and smiles. They climbed over each other and on us to get to him. For several minutes they poured out their love on him. They sang him a song they had learned just for him. It was beautiful. After the song, they instinctively crawled into our laps and hearts to get a refill of love. Each person on our team had several kids in their laps.

Loving them turned into playing with them. They playing spilled over into the street. There is a basketball court nearby and we all ended up there. Several locals showed up too. The next thing you know, we’re locked into a game of hoops. As one person from our group noted, there were people from Haiti, the US and the Philippines playing a game together without being able to speak each others languages.

At the end of the night, God came and met us on the balcony of our guest house. TJ asked us to share where we had seen Jesus throughout the day. Each person had seen Him somewhere and in different places and ways. It got me to thinking, “How often do we Jesus in our daily lives?” Better yet, how often are we looking for Him? He’s involved in our lives daily, but we’re so distracted by our busy lives that we fail to see Him.

Today, start your day with the intent of looking for Him. It could be in any encounter at work, school or at the store. It could be in someone you don’t know, but you see what they’re doing and God points something out to you. This is something we should all be in the habit of doing. God is not far off. He’s working for you and in you each day. Keep your eyes open, you may even look in the mirror and see Him there because you were His hands and feet to someone.

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April 25, 2013 · 6:27 AM

Peace. Hope. Love.

As I’m sitting on the roof, watching the sun rise in Haiti, I’m reflecting on yesterday. We arrived to chaos which, if you’ve ever been to a third world country airport is normal. Horns blaring, cars weaving in and out of people, others are trying to carry your bags for you and all the while follow the leader through this crazy maze. We get to our vehicles, load up all our luggage into the back of these quad cab trucks and half of us climb on top of the luggage to ride in the back.

As we make our way through Port au Prince, we are a sight to be seen. Some people wave and others have a look on there face of “Did that just happen?” Red lights and green lights don’t matter. Stops signs are just a decoration on the road. Horns are the language of drivers here. It took me back to my time in Egypt. We fought the traffic for what seemed like more than thirty minutes. I was enjoying it. I must have had a huge grin because the dust in the air caked my teeth.

All of a sudden, we arrive out our first destination. An orphanage for babies and toddlers with HIV and AIDS. Peace. The chaos stopped. I didn’t hear the horns anymore. My heart began to fill with love. My eyes with tears. As I sat down, I was talking with another person from our group. A little boy named Alfred came over and sat in my lap. He grabbed the phone out of my hand and started moving my apps around. Still in conversation, I hadn’t realized that my mind had made no distinction between he and my own son.

He soon ran off and another child climbed on my lap. I kissed her on the cheek, hugged her tight and tried talking with her. French Creole is not a language I speak. While I couldn’t speak the language, I could speak love and life to her. One after the other, the kids came up, climbed on me and it was as if I were home. There was love. There was peace. There was hope. There was life.

There was a book with several of the kids in it. Each page had a picture and a story. One little girl’s mother had died. Her father, who has HIV, went away to live in a tent city. The girl was given to her grandmother who was using her to beg and get money from strangers. A pastor came to her rescue and took her to that home. She’s getting food and the medical attention she needs now.

It’s a lot like us. We were abandoned in our sin. But God came and rescued us from that place and brought us into a place of peace, hope and love. He looked past our terminal disease of sin and brought us in. His Son’s blood provided the ointment for our spiritual healing. While we live in a world of chaos, He brings order and meaning to our lives. He is the One we can trust in a cruel world.

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April 10, 2013 · 8:33 AM

Hope to Help You Endure

This morning God woke me up with a single word: hope. There are a lot of people reading this today who need it. I know what it feels like to not have it. I also know that a little bit goes a long way. It keeps you going when you are at the end of your rope. It’s the difference between letting go and hanging on just a little bit longer. To me it has always been one of those things that gives me just enough energy when I think I’m done.

In Psalm 142, David was hiding out in a cave as he was being hunted down. He was feeling like many of us do. Here’s what he says in verses 3-7. See if you can relate:

As I sink in despair, my spirit ebbing away, you know how I’m feeling, know the danger I’m in, the traps hidden in my path.
Look right, look left – there’s not a soul who cares what happens!
I’m up against it, with no exit- bereft, left alone.
I cry out, God, call out: “You’re my last chance, my only hope for life!”
Oh listen, please listen; I’ve never been this low.
Rescue me from those who are hunting me down;
I’m no match for them.
Get me out of this dungeon so I can thank you in public.
Your people will form a circle around me and you’ll bring me showers of blessing!

The lies that were in his head told him that no one cared about him, that no one was there for him and that he was all alone. Maybe you’re hearing the same thing in your mind today. You think you have to face this alone. You feel like there is no one who understands what you’re going through. That isn’t true. Don’t dwell on those thoughts. Those lead to a place where there is no hope.

We serve a God of hope though. In Jeremiah 29:11 God says, “For I know the plans I have for you. They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” He has a future for you even when you can’t see it. He also wants to give you hope today even when you can’t see it. He has a plan for you and this thing you’re going through is part of it. He is strengthening you through it and preparing you to endure whatever else may come in the future.

Max Lucado wrote in his book “On the Anvil”, “God may have you go through a storm at 30 so you can endure a hurricane at 60.” I remember going through that storm and thinking, “If this is the storm, I don’t want to be in the hurricane.” What seems impossible to survive now will make it possible for you to endure in the future. You can survive this. You can make it through. There is hope.

I love how David ended his prayer above. “Your people will form a circle around me and you’ll bring me showers of blessing!” Don’t push away the people that God is placing in your life and are trying to form a circle of protection around you. Let them. Let them pray for you and with you. Be open and honest about how you are feeling so they’ll know how to pray. And when you’re on the other side of this, what was a storm will be showers of blessing.

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April 5, 2013 · 7:44 AM

Smacked by God

My brother said I could share what happened to him yesterday. He was pulling into a fast food restaurant with his son to grab lunch. As he was turning in, a lady whipped in front of him nearly hitting them. She was in a hurry to eat as well until she got in the drive through line. Once she got there, she started using her phone. The line would pull forward, but she was oblivious. She’d look up and notice and then pull forward.

After what seemed like an eternity and I’m sure 10 minutes of complaining about her, they got to the window to get their food. He handed his card to the person at the window and they said, “Actually, the lady on front of you paid for yours. It’s free.” He looked at my nephew and said, “That’s how God disciplines us. It’s in love, but it hurts.” They then laughed the rest of the day about how he had been behaving and how God smacked him.

A lot of times, each if us let our pride, anger or selfishness get in the way of our attitudes. We let those things change who we are into people we don’t recognize. We complain, scream, argue and find fault with others. One little, insignificant in the face of eternity event happens and sets us off. We let it dominate our thoughts, our attitude and our actions. Before you know it, we aren’t in control anymore. Our blood is boiling for what seems justified at the moment, but not long term.

Thankfully, God cares about us and usually will do something to end it. In this case, and I think in most cases, a little dose of humility was in order. But God didn’t just impugn him to humble him. God blessed him and at the same time showed him the error of his ways. That’s what I love about God. He doesn’t act like us or think like us. If I were in charge, I don’t think I would have blessed him for how he was behaving. Thankfully I’m not God.

In Isaiah 55:8, The Lord says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” He loves each one of us individually and corrects us how He sees fit. He knows if we need to be beaten over the head with a 2×4 because He can’t get through to us any other way (guilty). He knows if we need a gentle, quiet rebuke. His discipline always fits the situation and the person. No matter how He does it, it’s always done in love with our best interest at heart.

Hebrews 12:5-6 says, “My child, don’t make light of the Lord’s discipline, and don’t give up when He corrects you. For The Lord disciplines those He loves.” If God corrects you or disciplines you, don’t get angry at Him. He loves you enough to correct you and to point you in the right direction just like a parent would for their child. Accept it in love, laugh about how you were behaving and then make the adjustment so He doesn’t have to do it again.

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April 4, 2013 · 9:14 AM

Driven by Love

I watched several episodes of “The Bible” on the History channel. I know they took some dramatic liberty in some areas and they admitted it. As I watched the final episode on Easter, one of the things that stood out to me was when Simon dropped the cross on Golgotha and they forced him away, they beat Jesus as he crawled to the cross. That’s one of those things that I don’t know if it happened that way, but I’m glad they portrayed it like that.

Think for a second if you were innocent and about to be killed for something you didn’t do. Would you willingly get on the cross? No. You’d be kicking and screaming and they’d have to get an army of people to drag you onto it and then to hold you down while they nailed you to it. You’d be acting like a crazy person even if you were guilty I think. That’s why I loved what they did.

Jesus left Heaven willingly to come here. His sole purpose was to die for your sins. He knew what He was going to endure and did it anyway. I loved that they had Him crawl willingly on the cross. Against what you or I would do, He was driven by love to endure the beating, the shame and the nails for you. In John 10:18, Jesus said, “No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily.” We often think that it was the religious leaders or Pilate who had Jesus killed, but that’s not the case.

He not only voluntarily laid His life down, He even called out to God on behalf of those who killed Him. Jesus cried out from the cross in Luke 23:34, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” He was willing to forgive them while He was still in pain. While He was still hanging on the cross. To their faces. I don’t know about you, but I know I couldn’t have done that. Most of the time we don’t forgive others who have betrayed us at all or we wait years until the bulk of the pain is gone.

Jesus wasn’t like that. His desire was that not one person would perish, but that all would have everlasting life. Even those who killed Him. None of us deserve it really. Each of us have done something, or in my case, many things to offend God. We are not perfect, nor can we be. That’s why God’s love and grace are so amazing. He knows we can’t do it on our own so He shed His own blood to cover our sins. All we have to do is accept that act of love to cover our sins. The lyrics to “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” say it all: “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”

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April 2, 2013 · 7:55 AM

Lord Help!

I love Psalm 107. It talks about people in all kinds of situations and were all at the end of their ropes. He talks of those who were wandering aimlessly, those who were hungry, those who were having difficult times that caused them to live in darkness and gloom, those who have turned from God and rebelled, and those who were enduring a storm longer than they thought it would last. In each case, the people cried out, “Lord help!” And He came to the rescue.

In their cases and in most of our cases, we wait until it is an act of desperation to call out to God. It must be the way he hard wired us. We try to do everything on our own and in our own strength. I’m the first to admit that I’m the same way. I don’t think it’s so I get the glory and not Him. It’s more of an “I can do this” attitude. I don’t need anyone’s help. I got myself in this mess and I’ll get myself out.

Meanwhile, God is patiently waiting for us to call out, “Lord help!” He wants to rescue us. He wants to deliver us. We say, “the Lord is my shepherd,” but we don’t let Him shepherd us. We don’t let Him lead us to the still waters or the green pastures. When we go our own way and fall into distress, He is there looking for us to lead us back to safety. He’s not content to leave us in our situation simply because we’re headstrong and moved away from the pack.

What I’ve never understood about God is how He continues to love me no matter how far or often I move away from the heard. It’s a love I don’t deserve. None of us do. We all do things that get us in the situations listed in this Psalm. There also times where life just happens. There’s nothing we can do about it and don’t feel like we deserve it. Even in those times we have a choice. We can either have a pity party while life continues to rain on us or we can cry out, “Lord help!”

Psalm 145:8 says, “The Lord is close to all who call on Him.” He is waiting for us to call on Him. We often think we’re too far away from Him or done so much that we can never go back. I’ve been there. I was embarrassed and didn’t want to deal with facing those whom I thought I had let down. When I was near my lowest a friend said, “Boy, what are you doing? You need to get your butt back in that church where people know you and love you!” I gave every excuse I could as to why I couldn’t, but none were good enough.

Don’t let pride stand in your way of calling out for the Lord’s help today. Don’t make excuses why you can’t go home. His ear is listening for your voice. His eyes are searching all over for you. Jesus said that He would leave the 99 to find just one. You. You mean the world to Him. Don’t delay. Cry out today, “Lord help!” I promise you that He will come running to you. He will save you and rescue you.

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March 29, 2013 · 8:18 AM

Taking a Risk for Jesus

I’m sure you are well aware that today is Good Friday. This is the day that Jesus was crucified. The nailed Him to the cross around 9:00 AM and He hung there being ridiculed for six hours. Around 3:00 PM, He released His spirit and died. I’m not going to focus on that today though. What I am going to focus on is a verse in Mark 15. Verse 43 says, “Joseph of Arimathea took a risk and went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. (NLT)”

I was being interviewed for a position with the company I work for and the person doing the interview broke script. He said, “Chris, I really just want to know one thing. What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken?” My mind raced. Was he talking personally? Did he mean in business? Was he referring to helping a customer? I couldn’t think of anything right off the bat. If he was to have asked Joseph, this would have been his answer.

First of all, he approached Pilate who was ruthless and had no problem killing people. I’m sure Pilate was on edge because of the mob mentality that had gone on the night before. He was probably cranky from getting little to no sleep. Now, one of the Jewish leaders, a secret follower of Jesus, came in uninvited and was asking for the body of Jesus. Joseph’s mind was probably racing thinking of all the possible outcomes of this meeting. Only one had a positive outcome.

Pilate agreed to release the body to him. Joseph purchased a linen sheet to wrap jesus body. The book of John tells us that Nicodemus helped Joseph. Both men had been secret followers of Jesus up to this point. When all of Jesus’ outspoken followers were to scared to come out of the shadows, two men who could have lost their positions risked their lives, their income and their families in order to see to it that Jesus didn’t hang there through the Passover.

When’s the last time you took a risk for Jesus? Don’t just move on here. Think about that for a minute. Are you like I was in that interview? Is your mind racing trying to think of something? Anything? It’s tough. We are conditioned not to take big risks in our life and in our faith. We’re taught to look out for ourselves first, but that’s not what Jesus taught. Even the night before His crucifixion, He was teaching them to put others first as He washed their feet.

What risk can you take today for Him? I’m not asking you to put your life on the line, but I am asking you to put your foot in a door that has already been opened. You’ve just been too scared to say anything about your faith. You’ve been too afraid to invite them to church. What better time than this weekend? They’ll hear the true reason for Easter and that someone else risked their life for theirs. Isn’t eternity for someone else worth the risk? Jesus thought it was and we should too.

I wrote another post a couple of weeks ago that would be great to read today. It’s called Playing Pilate. Click here to check it out.

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February 14, 2013 · 8:20 AM

Loved Beyond Measure

I know that today is one of the hardest days of the year for a lot of people. It’s one more reminder that no one loves them. That they are single…. Still. It’s a difficult day emotionally. Other people are getting roses and gifts at work. They are talking about where they are going to eat tonight. They are showing off expensive gifts this morning. Then people look at those without that today, smile and say, “Don’t worry, you’ll find love someday. You just haven’t met the right one.”

Somehow words like that don’t help. They only drive the dagger deeper into the heart. Everyone has a need for love. Everyone has a need to be accepted by someone. It’s just the way God made us. Because He is love and we were made for Him, we were made with this cavern in us that can only be filled with love. Sure, being loved by a person is great and shows acceptance, but that alone doesn’t fill the cavern. God knew that we would seek out love and hoped that we would find Him.

Instead of finding Him, many find “love” in forms that are not of Him. They get desperate because their mind says, “I was supposed to be married by now” or “Im getting so old that there won’t be anyone left to love me.” I’ve been there. I’ll go a step further. My thoughts said, “All that’s left at this age are the crazies that no one wanted. I’ve got to choose from them. Oh wait, am I one of them?” The mind can play some pretty cruel tricks on you.

I can say that until you learn to love yourself, it will be hard for others to love you. The way you see yourself is the way you project yourself even though you try to mask it. If you don’t love yourself, your mind says, “No one will ever love you.” Then you fight off anyone that even tries. You find fault with them or reasons you shouldn’t be together and sabotage the relationship often unknowingly. It becomes a cycle and the norm.

The first step to loving yourself is realizing that you are already loved. You are loved beyond measure and beyond your own comprehension. I John 4:10 says, “This is real love – not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” God loves you no matter what. You are His child and He gave His all, His very best, for you! Yes, I’m talking to you. You are valuable. You are worthy of love. You are constantly thought of. Psalm 139: 17-18 says, “How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand.”

Think about that. If every time God thought about you was counted, it would be more than the grains of sand in the Sahara. More than the grains of sand on every beach in the world combined. He’s obsessed with you! He loves you more than anyone including yourself can. Accept that love and know that you are worthy of love, even your own. A person’s love, while good to have, will not fill that cavern in you. It won’t even get you to Heaven, but God’s love will and does.

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January 11, 2013 · 8:18 AM

From Defeat to Victory

I used to worry a lot. There were things going on in my life that I couldn’t control. Things were happening faster than I could react to them. That worry lead to stress. That stress then lead to high blood pressure. My doctor put me on blood pressure meds, but they didn’t work. I’m thinking she probably should have put me on anxiety meds. I’m glad she didn’t because medicine wasn’t the answer I needed. My answer came through a friend who wasn’t scared to say something.

She asked me some questions that got me to thinking. She asked, “Are the things that are happening to you a surprise to God? Is God worried about them? Or is He still on His throne and in control?” Well I knew the answers to those questions, but didn’t want to say it. They did make me think about how I was looking at things. I had gotten so caught up in the problems and things popping up in my life that I allowed God to be taken out of the equation.

I don’t think I’m alone in this. I think many of us get caught up in our daily life and the problems that catch us unaware. We allow them to consume us to the point that it dominates how and what we think. When that happens to us, it’s easy to make our problems bigger than the God we serve. It doesn’t happen over night either. It comes from a constant bombardment of things that attack us. It’s a war technique that is happening to you.

Think back to Desert Storm. Our initial operations there had a code name of “Shock and Awe”. Most war plans, game plans and plans of attack begin with some type of shock and awe. They do it because if you aren’t expecting it, it will throw you off course, force you to make poor decisions and it gives the attacker the upper hand. It is designed to break your will and to keep you from fighting back. Submission is its goal.

I had submitted to the things that were coming at me faster than I could handle. I left the fundamentals that I had been taught. Once I did that, I began to be defeated. Defeat is the ultimate goal of our attacker. Once we are defeated, we are no longer a threat. Defeat breeds worry and depression which are cyclical and keep you from fighting. They take our mind out of the war that is going on and eventually remove the thought that God still cares and is our path to victory.

My friends questions caused me to put God back in the equation. When God is added in to the battles in your life, victories are multiplied. God cares deeply about where you are. He is not unaware of the things that are plaguing your mind right now. He is silently waiting for you to remember Him and to get back to the fundamentals which are praying and reading His Word. Romans 10:17 says that faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of God. If you need a faith boost this morning, get into God’s Word. Read it out loud. Speak the promises of God and reclaim your mind. Victory is at stake.

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January 10, 2013 · 7:25 AM

Hope for Your Dream

I have been thinking a lot about Joseph, the son of Jacob. I have committed to do a study on him to see what I can glean from his life. We know how his father gave him a coat of many colors and how his brothers despised him, but I want to know who he really was and how we can apply things from his life to ours. I’m sure you’ll be seeing more posts about him soon. His story is found in Genesis 37-45.

Today, I want to focus on him in prison. Many years had passed since God had given him a dream that his family would bow down to him. I can imagine Joseph sitting in that prison wondering about that dream. I wonder if he wished he had never told his brothers about the dream God gave him. After he told them, they threw him into a pit, sold him into slavery where he was falsely accused and now sitting in a prison to rot.

I think a lot of us are at that point right now. God birthed a dream in you and you began to share it. You then noticed that when you shared it, things in your life began to fall apart. When things in our lives fall apart, we begin to seclude ourselves. We pull back from others. It may be because you don’t want them to catch your bad luck, because you want to protect them from anything bad coming your way or you could just be embarrassed from everything that’s happening.

When we seclude ourselves, we build walls. When we build walls, we find ourselves in prison like Joseph. You may not be in a physical prison like he was, but you are still secluded and alone making you feel like you’re in prison. It’s easy to sit in that prison and think that the dream is dead. It is not! Just like a seed planted in the earth grows dormant so that it can grow, the dream God placed in you may be dormant before it can grow.

I personally know the pain of thinking that a dream is dead due to circumstances. God’s promises are not bound by the circumstances in your life. He is not unaware of what you are facing today. You cannot let your circumstances dictate that the dream is dead. If God has planted it, He will grow it no matter where you are or what you’re going through. His Word never returns void. It’s in the depths of our prisons that our dreams can grow. In those dark places where we think there is no life, God is there cultivating you and that dream.

It often takes us getting to the end of our rope before the dream comes back alive so that we will always know that the dream was realized not by our own strength or doing, but by God alone. He is the one who gave it to you and He is the one who will fulfill it. You, like Joseph, are simply being put into position for the realization of your dream. If Joseph had never been in prison, no one would have known he could interpret the Pharaoh’s dream and his family would have been lost.

If you’re in that dark prison today, don’t despair. Keep hope with you. Know that God is putting you into position so that dream can be realized. God is working in your life through the good and the bad to bring about what He promised. He works all things together for your good. You are not alone. You are not forgotten in your prison. You have a God who sees you, loves you and is working for your good. Continue to trust Him and be patient.

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