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.
Often the problem with our witness as Christians is that we don’t love the people we’re witnessing to.
My wife shared with me how as she and our son were leaving Walmart they were approached by two people saying, “What church do you attend?” And, after saying a bit more they handed her a flyer and invited them to their church.
She called me immediately after and said, “I guess they were well meaning, but why does it bother me so bad?”
I submit because there was no love.
Part of love is honor. And, honor is an acknowledgement of worth.
The spirit of this particular approach my wife experienced was, “You lack something that you need me to give to you.” It’s presumptuous, accusatory and dishonoring.
Now what would this encounter look like if it were someone I actually honored? What if it were Warren Buffett or Jeff Bezos I were talking to?
Now if this were Warren Buffett of Jeff Bezos, my approach would be one of honor and accommodation. I’d go to them rather than expect them to come to me. I’d clear my calendar and would make room for them whenever they could grace me with their presence in hope of just being in their company and getting some small shred of insight into how I might attain the wealth that they have.
For believers Jesus is our treasure. Ephesians 4:8 says “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men”. He distributed this heavenly wealth as precious expressions of His person to the redeemed, giving to some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, some teachers… (Ephesians 4:11-12)
The point being that there’s a potential of some insight into the unsearchable riches of Christ available through every person you meet that you won’t get any other way! Oh, what tremendous value and worth that person represents!
It would transform our ministry if we approached people in excited anticipation of what glimpse of Christ we may glean through them.
But first, we have to address that our values are misplaced and repent. A lack of honor is a dead give-away that we perceive a person lacks worth.
Jesus said our treasure should not be on earth but that when we value what He value and honor those He loves with even a cup of cold water, we’ll have treasure in heaven. Jesus thought that person you are talking to at any given moment was worth the cross.
Originally posted on Facebook on Sunday, October 9, 2022.
God provides.
"Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds?"
-Luke 12:24
God provides for all creation. He feeds the birds but He doesn't drop the worm in their mouths.
God provides through means and mechanisms.
The means are abundant opportunity.
"O Lord, how manifold are Your works!
In wisdom You have made them all.
The earth is full of Your possessions—
This great and wide sea,
In which are innumerable teeming things,
Living things both small and great."
"These all wait for You,
That You may give them their food in due season.
What You give them they gather in;
You open Your hand, they are filled with good."
-Psalms 104:24-25,27-28
The mechanism is the God ordained system to convert opportunity into sustenance and wealth:
Work.
"He causes the grass to grow for the cattle,
And vegetation for the service of man,
That he may bring forth food from the earth"
Psalms 104:14
Originally posted on Facebook on Wednesday, October 5, 2022.
Would I seek after God if all I got was a relationship with Him?
To those who come after Him, Jesus asks a sharp question:
"What do you seek?" -John 1:38
Imagine a relationship so marvelous that the other stuff no longer matters.
To that Jesus says, "Come and see." -John 1:39
Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
Luke 9:57-58
I believe the Word makes it clear that until we are ready to accept God on those terms: at the expense of all else, the abandonment of all else and satisfaction with Him alone, we will not receive Him.
God is the treasure. The question always before us is "Is God enough?"
