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.
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?"
