Originally posted on Facebook on Saturday, November 19, 2022.
Don't be deceived by the smiles.
All was not well in paradise. It is a useful reminder that pictures on social media doesn't tell the whole story.
Moments after this picture was taken, Melissa and I had one of the biggest fights we've had this year.
There's struggle behind those smiles.
The moral of the story is that nicer things or fancier places doesn't fix the problems of the heart, that we're not perfect (nor need to be) and that you never arrive in marriage.
We should never become complacent. We must be careful not to forget that we have an adversary and that we're in hostile, enemy territory.
Either you're fighting to get closer or you're being pulled apart (by enemy forces).
I thank God for 21 years of glorious war. There's no one I'd rather be in the foxhole with than Melissa Luckett.
I hope to encourage the body of Christ at large and my married friends who are a microcosm of that body that they don't have to be perfect but persistent and to always be fighting toward each other -toward oneness in Christ, using the weapons of His warfare, by His grace and for His glory.
Originally posted on Facebook on Friday, November 18, 2022.
Marriage is the awesome and intricate process of God making two, one.
You don't get to 21 years of marriage accidentally, nor do you get there alone.
In celebration of this year's anniversary, Melissa and I visited our mentors, Pearson and Pepper Liddell who not only ministered to us during our stay but demonstrated hospitality in the most biblical sense. They opened their beautiful home in Hawaii to us and even provided a car for us to use. They anticipated our every need, even down to beach chairs and water bottles. We were wonderfully cared for and lacked no good thing.
They keep schooling us on how our homes and the picture of marriage are used to reflect God's character and to demonstrate how He loves. Through their marriage ministry we've made lifelong friends that, to this day, are people we call for help with this wonderful ministry and mystery called marriage. That community and accountability has been vital to the health of our marriage. As a result, Melissa and I are significantly closer to being one than when we began.
So, on this anniversary we give thanks for 21 years of marriage and for every person that helped to get us there.
Originally posted on Facebook on Thursday, November 17, 2022.
I told a group of white brothers that one of the tensions that divide blacks and whites in the body of Christ is that participation only seems to work one way.
I said bluntly,
"Whites always want blacks to come to their stuff but [it seems] whites don't think it's worthwhile to go where black are hosting [namely, where blacks are leading]."
You know what they did?
They said, "Thank you."
What's perhaps more remarkable is what they didn't do. Because their hearts desire was for His righteousness and correction, instead of justification, they did not recoil, they did not deflect AND they did NOT necessarily agree with me. But, they stood on the sure foundation of Christ, willing to set whatever was necessary aside, in order to meet me there, to the end that other sheep of other folds that hear and follow the voice of Jesus would be One –one flock with one Shepherd. (John 10:16)
Join us.
Laymen Fellowship
Today, Thursday, November 17, 2022 6:30 PM
FIRST BAPTIST LONGVIEW CHURCH
976 LONGVIEW RD
STARKVILLE, MS 39759
Originally posted on Facebook on Wednesday, November 9, 2022.
Last gem I'll post today from Jimmy Gant's testimony (cause I've got to work). He shared how his ordeal caused him to question everything, including common saying among Christians such as, "God won't put more on you than you can bear." His search for answers in scripture revealed that's simply untrue. It's just not in the Bible.
But what is there is this:
"And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.'' Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
-2 Corinthians 12:9
We may very well find ourselves in situations we cannot bear so that our dependence on God is absolute and so His power is apparent, to the glory of His name and the resultant grace (including saving grace) that is imparted to those who witness it.
Originally posted on Facebook on Wednesday, November 9, 2022.
Every day I try to evaluate how I might use my time, work and resources for God's purposes and glory.
A few nights ago, I attended an event called Man Church where a man named Jimmy Gant recounted his near death encounter during a road construction accident where he fell into a batch of hot-mix asphalt and was pinned in this mound of smoldering rubble by a piece of heavy machinery rolling over his leg. He was burning alive and the heat literally melted off his fingers.
He's a man that has long been active in community and ministry. During the ordeal, he protests, "Lord, all these years I've served you. This can't be happening to me. Surely, you have the wrong man!"
His sermon to us that night at Man Church was a powerful challenge to our thinking around how "bad things happen to good people".
It posed the question, of all the things we have and can use for God's purposes and His glory (e.g. time, resources, work), what about pain? Will my pain cause me to curse God or will I use it for His glory?
I want to be faithful to the end and use it all –even my pain.
Without question, Jimmy Gant used his pain to glorify God. I was deeply blessed.
Originally posted on Facebook on Sunday, November 6, 2022.
God yearns jealously for you.
Marriage teaches me so much about God and how He intends for us to live in community.
My wife and I had a tiff yesterday. It wasn't anything major, an annoyance, if anything. It could have been easily dismissed but my spirit was not at ease knowing that there was anything between us. Something in me could not tolerate any risk of there being distance. The very notion tortured me.
I yearn for my wife. Therefore, I seek and jealously guard our oneness, watchful and ready to destroy anything that attempts to divide us -even my own desire.
It's yet another proof that God is real, that I have been born again and that I am His because that's not my heart, it's His (2 Corinthians 5:17-21) –the same heart He has for you and, as a result, the same heart I have for you.
A neighbor reached out to me recently about how comments I made caused some offense and I was glad for the opportunity.
Jesus taught that reconciling such offenses are an opportunity to "win a brother" (Matthew 18:15) and should be our priority even to the extent that it supersedes our going to church and giving our offering (Matthew 5:24) because our expressions of faith are pointless if the heart of the God of our faith is not expressed in our practice (1 John 4:20).
The heart of God is One (Deuteronomy 6:4, John 17:21). I am in pursuit of that oneness and my most earnest desire is to draw near to God and to draw every soul I encounter near to me in God. This is the ministry of reconciliation.
Therefore I also yearn jealously for my neighbor and cannot tolerate any separation to stand.
I hear Christians dismiss the current culture as "snowflakes" and as a culture of victimhood. But, where is our love? Where is our gentleness? Where is our patience? That dismissive spirit is not the spirit of Christ. Jesus in His forbearance demonstrated that people are worth the cross.
Reconciling offenses are an opportunity to lay down our lives, lift Christ up and draw men unto Him, so that the whole world may be reconciled to Him and that those reconciled would be one with us in Christ Jesus.
Practically, as I stand in Christ, every separation that I can remove between me and a neighbor brings them one step closer to Christ.
We, the church of Christ, have been given by our King the purchase price of redemption and the resources to overcome every division that plagues humanity.
Christ makes us rich.
Therefore I can afford to come to these difficult situations and to every interaction full of grace, ready to give and forgive because I am drawing on Christ's account.
"For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son…" (John 3:16)
God yearns for His beloved and gave everything for them. Likewise, we, who were so loved, should also yearn for His beloved, using every occasion and everything He's given us to achieve His good and perfect will.
We, the church, should be the world's foremost authority on reconciliation -starting at home, then in the places we work and live.
But, we are not. Repent.
Do not allow separation to stand between our neighbor and us and most importantly, Christ.
Originally posted on Facebook on Saturday, October 29, 2022.
So, the drag show is back on the schedule.
And, I came to the Cotton District Arts Festival anyway
because I'm an adult.
I wasn't for the drag show. I voiced my objection. It didn't go my way and I moved on. I'm not in a corner pouting like a child or scheming how I might impose my will on you in the future.
This is part of living in community. Sometimes things don't go the way you want but that's what comes with living with other people.
It's a price I gladly pay for our wonderful, vibrant community.
I came out today because Melissa and I wanted to be with our neighbors despite our differing positions on the issue and to prove that we can disagree, even staunchly, and still be friends, living peaceably together.
Originally posted on Facebook on Friday, October 28, 2022.
In my view, this drag queen business and that gigantic cross in Starkville are much of the same thing.
I suspect it's not about inclusivity or faith, it's about power and making a public declaration about who has it.
Whether that's true or not, I don't really care, but what I do care about is how the struggle between these opposing constituencies risk cleaving the baby of our community in two. And, I wish one had the compassion and gentleness to forbear so that the baby could live. And, oh how I wish it were my fellow Christians.
Whatever your position, the community is not yours, it's ours.
We don't all believe or live the same and never will but we've got to learn how to live together, to share the same space and make it work just as well for one as any other without violating the harmony of the whole.
And to be clear on my position, I do not believe a drag performance at what has been widely regarded as a family friendly event is in keeping with that harmony. In my view, it egregiously violates the long-standing expectation for a family-friendly atmosphere.
At the end of the day, whatever your persuasion: gay, trans, straight, Christian or not, know this: I respect you, I value you, I want you with me, I want you near me and I want to be a good neighbor to you. If we can at least agree on that, we can respectfully work through anything –together.
Originally posted on Facebook on Thursday, October 27, 2022.
About the other night…
I'm full of hope.
Ephesians 4 tells followers of Christ to walk worthy of our calling, with all humility and gentleness, with longsuffering, to bear with each other in love, endeavoring to KEEP the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
In the body of Christ, unity is not something we achieve –Christ through the Spirit has already done that.
Unity is something we defend.
And, I am so thankful for the leadership of men such as Vernon West, Orlando Trainer, Johnny Buckner, Tim Boden and Josiah Buckner who are willing to fight for it!
We're waging war on Satan's efforts to divide us. The gates of Hell shall not prevail against us! We're fighting towards each other and it's beautiful.
