Originally posted on Facebook on Tuesday, May 27, 2025.

You know what I think makes for a fulfilling life?

Creating the beauty you want to see in the world.

No—more than that—creating the beauty you were created to bring into the world.

This is the Imago Dei—our likeness to our Creator. After each day of creation, God stepped back, reflected on His work—the beauty He put into the world—and saw “It is good” (Genesis 1).

That’s the first thing I must remember:
To be intentional about creating the beauty I was made to bring into the world.

I’ve noticed the "beauty" I’m drawn to create often reflects a trait of God’s character. Coincidence?

So now, I evaluate my days with a single question:
“Have I brought God to something today?”
If I have, it was a good day.

And I’ve learned—you don’t necessarily need a new job to create this kind of beauty.
Often, I can simply do my job in a new way.

I can attest to this.

I’m not particularly passionate about switches, servers, or routers.
But I do care deeply about connecting people, keeping them safe, and making their burdens lighter.
Information Technology just happens to be the canvas for me to bring it into the world.

And it’s not just about work—
Beauty can be brought into every part of life: family, daily activities, even rest.

The problem is, we often miss it.
Not because it’s not there—but because we fail to step back, reflect on our work—the beauty we've put into the world, and see it is good.

So here’s what I’m learning:

The first thing I must remember to do is to be intentional about creating the beauty I want to see in the world.
The second is to rejoice over it.

And I have much to rejoice about.

It's so wonderful to see, for example, co-workers appreciated and encouraged, or the family in Christ I've ministered to serving and expressing love for one another.

I can see why Paul wrote passages like Ephesians 1:15-16,

"Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers …"

It's so good.

Satan’s full-time job is to prevent me from seeing it.
But it’s there—beauty I’ve been allowed a hand in creating.
And it’s worth fighting to see.

That beauty—participating in expressing God's beauty—makes life so fulfilling.

#WhatMakesLifeFulfilling #Beauty #Work #Fullfillment #GoodWorks #Thriveday #PerfectOurLove

Originally posted on Facebook on Monday, May 26, 2025.

Jesus did not come so we would have right ideas.
Jesus came so we would have God.

“ I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”
“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
— John 10:10; 17:3

Have you ever been hit so hard that you can't tell up from down?

I have.

When life hits you like that, philosophies, principles, and ideas leave you.

But, God never will.

” … For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’”
— Hebrews 13:5

Come to Jesus, believe Him. Keep asking, seeking and knocking—desiring God.

“For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”
— Luke 11:10

And get God through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit who draws near by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

God is not just a concept in our head. Faith does not come by being convinced. It comes by meeting a Person, and by love of that Person that makes us one with Him.

“ … Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.”
— 1 Corinthians 8:1

Receive what cannot be shaken as you become something new in Him never to be separated again.

#KnowGod #perfectourlove

Originally posted on Facebook on Monday, May 19, 2025.

I recently learned that Charles Spurgeon wrestled his entire life with depression. I find a quote from him on how he navigated his suffering deeply helpful,

“It would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me, that the bitter cup was never filled by His hand, that my trials were never measured out by Him, nor sent to me by His arrangement of their weight and quantity.”

It makes Paul's thorn in the flesh all the more real to me.

The Apostle Paul writes,

"And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me."
– 2 Corinthians 12:7-8

What is fascinating to me is that Paul attributes the thorn to Satan but appeals to God for its removal.

In doing so he acknowledges the sovereignty of God—that God is in control in every circumstance. But more than that, he trusts Him.

Why?

Because of God's purpose.

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."
— Romans 8:28

This even applies to things done to me by others with malicious intent:

"But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive."
– Genesis 50:20

God's purpose is God:

God with us. God in us. God through us. God all in all.

And, that's good.

So whatever I face, I can be confident: God is in control, He is working it together for good, and that good is having more of Him.

But, sometimes it's really hard and I don't want that bitter cup.

Our Lord knows all about that and cried out, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me…" —Matthew 26:39

The Apostle Paul, too, knows that difficulty and pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from him. (2 Corinthians 12:8)

But God responds, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” —2 Corinthians 12:9

So, like Spurgeon, Paul and our Lord Jesus, I conclude,

"Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." —2 Corinthians 12:9

"Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will." —Matthew 26:39

Because, Your will is good.

God's purpose is God:

God with us. God in us. God through us. God all in all.

May everything I am and have—including my suffering—result in more of You.

#MySureHopeInSuffering #perfectourlove #depression #suffering #GodsSovereignty #hope

Originally posted on Facebook on Monday, May 19, 2025.

There is only one objective: being with God.¹

There is only one work: believe in the one whom God sent—Jesus Christ.²

There is only one expression: loving one another.³

There is only one way: the manifold grace that flows toward us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.⁴⁵

Beware anyone who makes it any more complicated than that.

Life in Christ is not complicated, sin is.

Most of the volume and intricacy of Scripture exists to expose the great multiplicity and complexity of sin in the light of the truth of God so that we are not caught unaware and overcome by sin. It illuminates the complex and perilous minefield to bring us to the way of escape—back to the simplicity that is in Christ.

"But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."
— 2 Corinthians 11:3

This is the simplicity in Christ:

Jesus is how I connect to God.

Jesus is how I connect to you.

Jesus bridges God and man.

#TheSimplicityInChrist #PerfectOurLove

Originally posted on Facebook on Friday, May 16, 2025.

Was blessed with another treasure in Bible Study this morning. 1 Kings 13 is rich.

It's the account of the man of God who was killed by a lion after following instructions from a prophet that contradicted what God told him to do.

Reading it again this morning stirred so many questions in my heart.

I asked God, why did the man of God heed the prophet? The man of God clearly understood what God had commanded him, as he repeated it word for word at least twice.

I sense it's because what the man of God was tasked with was heavy, terrifying, and isolating. He was being sent into hostile territory to confront people gripped in a culture of idolatry—where he would have no allies, and to the king no less—someone who had power to hurt and kill him. In a word, the man of God felt alone (see 1 Kings 18:22).

After such a harrowing ordeal, I would have readily welcomed a friendly face too.

Then I observed that there was already a prophet in Bethel—the old prophet. So why didn't God send the prophet that was already there?

I sense that God did not send the prophet that was already there because he was already there. The old prophet was a part of the very thing that needed to be corrected.

The last question I'll share (as I have many) is how could the man of God have known? While he knew what God told him, how could he know that the old prophet was lying?

What burned in my heart is that it is vital that we not only discern the "what" of God, but also—and more importantly—the "why" of God. God does not just do things; He does them for a reason. So we must seek and discern His purpose and see it through to its completion.

God's purpose here was to restore—to bring His people out of a condition of sin, which you cannot do if you're participating in it with them.

"But others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh." —Jude 1:23

In all, I gleaned:

• Be mindful of the things of God rather than the things of men. While an action or reaction may be perfectly reasonable, that is no excuse for disobedience. Be prepared to walk alone.

• Be careful not to be in the thing that God has chosen you to help others out of.

• Be clear, not only on what to do, but on God's why. Seek diligently and discern God's purpose in what He's leading you to do. When His leading is in agreement with His Word (1 Corinthians 14:32), stand on that and see it through to the end no matter what anyone else says (Acts 21:10-14).

#StayMindfulOfTheThingsOfGod

Originally posted on Facebook on Thursday, May 15, 2025.

Someone dear to me asked, “Can you be a good person without being a Christian?”

Without hesitation, I answered, “Certainly” (in the way goodness is typically understood—acts of kindness, justice, generosity, love, etc.).

I continued, “But that’s not the objective of Christianity, nor is it its exclusive claim anywhere in Scripture. Our aim is to be with God, and Christ makes the exclusive claim of making that possible.”

Still, asking whether someone can be good without the God revealed by Christ is like asking if life can exist where there is no sunlight. Yes—but not ultimately. The effect only exists because of the Cause.

Just as life can exist apart from the sun, that life only exists because of the sun. So too, while people may express some form of goodness apart from God, all goodness only exists because of God. This is a part of common grace.

In both cases, the effects still depend on their causes. In the complete and permanent absence of the cause, the effects will cease to exist.

The goodness we see now is a mercy—and temporary. Only the Son leads us to its source forever.

#GoodWithoutGod #CommonGrace #Gospel #PerfectOurLove

Originally posted on Facebook on Wednesday, May 14, 2025.

A precious treasure was revealed to me in my Bible Study this morning.

In Paul's prayer for the Ephesians in Ephesians 3:18–19, he says, "[I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ … that you] may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

Before, what I heard was, "that I may understand the width, length, and height of the love of Christ." I understood that to be a call upward—beyond simply religious engagement with two-dimensional words on a page and to experience Christ as He is: real, a person who came in the flesh in three dimensions (width, length, and height), who I can know. Beautiful, right? But I didn't know the half—still don't.

Two things came to me today.

One revelation was that Paul didn't give three dimensions—he gave four: width and length and depth and height. We exist and experience reality in three dimensions, but here he points out that there's a depth beyond merely existing. Yet, the sense I have is that the Apostle Paul was not just being poetic; he was using language for an extradimensional reality that would be explored by math and physics thousands of years later—think Einstein’s theory of relativity, which posits a single continuum of space and time.

The other, and most remarkable, was that Paul didn’t say "that I may know the width and length and depth and height," but "that we may know"—that we, together with all the saints, may be able to comprehend and know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.

"With all the saints" is the linchpin of that passage—a central theme that anchors not only this passage but much of Paul’s message in Ephesians. With Christ at the core, that togetherness allows us to step into a dimension we cannot even conceive.

This leaves me in awe. I get chills pondering it. It is so inconceivably awesome that Paul concludes this prayer in Ephesians 3:20 with, "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."

And I, though thousands of years removed from when this prayer was penned, but by the power of Christ, as part of one continuum, can say—just as though I were there at that very moment—“AMEN!”

I want this more than anything.

And, I see more clearly that I need you to get it.

#perfectourlove #TogetherWeMayKnowHisLove