The One Thing That Will Change Your Life

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.--Matthew 6:33

I want to ask you, if you're a Christian: what is the kingdom of God?

It seems like, if Jesus told us Himself that seeking it was the most important aim of our lives, we ought to know what it is. But I bet most Christians have never even considered how God defines His kingdom. And we're going to have a hard time finding it if we don't know what we're looking for.

This whole time, I've thought that the kingdom of God was getting people to accept Jesus and have their lives radically altered by Him. Not to mention peace and joy and hippie Christian commune in the Holy Spirit. Casting out demons. Seeing the blind receive sight and the lame walk. In short, heaven on earth.

But the most important thing in the kingdom of God, I have thought, is for us to know our identity in Christ. If we know we are sons and daughters of the King, of course heaven will naturally come to earth. It all has to do with how much we understand our own identities!!!..............Right?

So I've sought and sought to find out who I am in Christ. I've made it my one true aim. I opened the scriptures every day to find out what He says I am.

And I've been frustrated.

Let me tell you why. The Bible is addressed to me and talks about me, but I (and you) are really only minor characters. Reading the Bible to find out your identity in Christ is like reading backwards. There is only one true star of the whole script.

It's kind of a "duh" moment, but I just realized that the Bible isn't about me. It's about God.

In our culture, we are constantly instructed to "find ourselves." I spent years looking everywhere for myself. I finally ended up a Christian because I understood that God was the only source of my identity. But I've gone about this Christian life with the wrong aim. I've been looking for me instead of Him.

I've heard message after message about "hearing God," my "identity in Christ," "prosperity," "grace," "God's will for your life." These messages aren't bad; but if they're all I'm hearing, I have a problem. All of these topics are about ME. We listen, and we take our new little "nugget"of "revelation" home and try to apply it to our lives. We live from revelation to revelation. Snack to snack. And we are hungry and frustrated. And I can tell you with absolute certainty that I am way more boring and less satisfying than He is.

What if my one singular purpose in life, what He created me to do, is not to find out who I am, but to find out who He is?

David wrote, "You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever" (Psalm 16:11).

He does tell us what path to take. But that's not the point of this verse. I think the kingdom of God is this simple: fullness of joy in His presence. Knowing HIM. Who cares about us and our identities? I only want to care about HIS identity.

I mean, He made the whole world just by speaking. Don't you want to get to know someone like that?

I don't know about you, but I want to know the same kind of intimacy with the Father that drove Jesus to the cross. He didn't give up His life for an ideal, for His country, or even really for us. He gave it willingly because His Father asked Him to.

What kind of goodness must the Father possess if people, including Jesus, are willing to die for Him? They must really know who He is. No one will die for a tyrant. But for someone they love, they will sacrifice their lives.

What if we knew the Father so well that we would do anything for Him?

When I read the Old Testament, I see that time after time, the Israelites forsook the God of Abraham and went after idols. And all the way from Genesis to Malachi, the Lord repeats the same complaints: "They don't know me." He is angry with their blatant sin, but He always points out that the reason they are sinning is because they don't know Him.

The Israelites didn't continually turn from God and serve the Baals, sacrificing babies and committing adultery with temple prostitutes, because they didn't understand who THEY were. It was because they didn't understand who HE is. They did not understand His righteousness.

Oh, wait--didn't we hear something about righteousness in that verse about the kingdom of God?

"Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness."

If we don't know what the kingdom of God is, maybe we should just look a few words over. The kingdom of God is HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS. In other words, His character. Who he is. His identity.

You will never perform a miracle because you know who you are. You will perform a miracle because you know who He is. 

I've tried a thousand times to approach a sick person to pray for them by pep-talking myself about my authority and identity in the kingdom of God. But I haven't tried to approach them with the simple thought that He is the God who created light, ocean tides, mitochondria, and seahorses....Like, "awesome" doesn't begin to cover it.

I've spent so much time asking God, "Who am I?" Maybe He'd appreciate it just a little bit if I started waking up every morning and asking Him, "Who are you?"

My pride and selfishness will only leave me frustrated. A humble heart toward the Lord will ignite me to my true purpose.

I don't mean to step on any toes (and I'm preaching to myself, too), but you aren't going to get to know Him that well just by sitting on your butt. You will only get to know Him as He is by spending time with Him and asking Him.

"But I don't hear clearly from God," you might say. Well, can you read? Obviously, because you're reading this. Read the Bible as if all you are looking for is what it says about HIM.

I have a right to say this to you, because I'm just now realizing it myself. Our culture has jipped us. And the church is missing it just as much as secular culture. Church is not about us. It's about Him. Anytime we reduce it to anything less than that, it's a frustrating experience. It may draw people in briefly, but it will ultimately drive them away, dissatisfied.

Do you know why? Because the only satisfaction we can find in life is in God. That's it. There's nothing else. We can't find purpose even in our identity as believers. Yes, it's good to know our identity, and good to embrace it. But identity is a by-product of knowing Him. Our identity is not our purpose. Knowing His identity is.

When I had this gentle revelation, I felt like I felt the day that I first really decided to follow Jesus. I felt a sense of overwhelming relief, and a feeling that everything is going to change for good.

We don't need self-help books and personality tests and themed Bible studies. These are not bad things. But they aren't what we NEED. They are the things that are "added unto us." But the thing about adding is that you need a foundation to add to. The fact is that, if you don't understand that knowing Him--His heart, His righteousness, His goodness, His beauty--is the most important thing, even your greatest revelations about your identity in Christ are like Legos on quicksand. 

What if the whole church stopped straining to make ourselves into "who we're supposed to be" and just started seeking His face? What if we stopped continuously seeking to preach and buy and read our "identity in Christ" and just spent every day asking Him about His identity?

I tell you what would happen. We wouldn't have to search out our identity in Christ. We would just become it. And we would change the world.

It's Personal

Recently, I had a dream about being sucked up in a tornado. At first, I was terrified of not being able to breathe because I’ve heard that the air pressure in a tornado sucks out your breath. (Although it would seem that there would be bigger problems if you were flying around in a twister.) After a minute, though, I discovered that I could still breathe, although I could not see and had no idea what was happening. I felt a sense of peace in my dream because I just knew that God was there.

I know that’s a wacky dream, but I think that following Jesus is kind of like that: flying around in a tornado, unharmed and able to breathe.

I’ve long believed that life isn’t worth living unless you’re doing something that scares you a little bit. I’m not talking about being an aimless, thrill-seeking adrenaline addict; I’m talking about living into your full potential in Christ. Life with Him is just plain exciting….that is, if you trust Him.

The Bible speaks about Abraham, the ultimate faith warrior, in this way:

He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”—Romans 4:19-22

It’s a common misconception that “faith” means manufacturing a feeling in yourself to produce some kind of result. “Believe for your healing!” people say. “Have faith for your miracle!” For one thing, that mentality makes it seem like faith is all you. But my Bible says that faith is a fruit of the Spirit—which means it comes from Holy Spirit, not from you.  

But more important, thinking of faith in this context leads us into the mindset that faith is only belief in what God can do.  However, the true definition of faith can be found in the above description of Abraham: “No distrust made him waver.” Faith is not about objectively believing in God’s sovereignty or power. It’s wholeheartedly, sincerely trusting in WHO HE IS—even to the point of giving up all else to seek His heart. It’s being in a tornado: completely unable to see the path clearly, but holding on to who He is.

Now that’s personal.

A lot of people talk big about being a Christian, but in their hearts, they feel constantly afraid. You can agree with the Word of God and all His promises as much as you want to, but if you don’t really know Him, you’re not going to believe that He is who He says He is.  The result is that the tornado is coming for you—and you’re terrified of suffocating.

I’m not saying this to be condemning, because I think most people in America are used to drive-thru church, a vending machine relationship with God. In fact, riding on the highway just now, I saw a sign that advertised “free wi-fi and mini-fridge” at a nearby hotel…you know, so you don’t have to actually talk to or interact with anybody. I think many Christians are simply afraid to get personal with the Lord (or anybody else, for that matter).

Belief is objective. Trust is personal.

The opposite of faith is not scoffing unbelief. It’s more sneaky than that. The opposite of faith is fear that comes from deep-rooted distrust of God.

Distrust can come from a variety of sources. The enemy is endlessly creative in his ability to inspire suspicion, resentment, and bitterness toward God. It may be consistent failure in your life. It may be that people you trusted deeply let you down. It may be bad things that happened to you, which can turn into an opportunity for the devil to whisper in your ear, “God doesn’t really love you. He’s not going to be there for you.” Distrust of God is often disguised as lack of confidence in yourself, but that is only distrust of who God says you are because you don’t trust who HE is. Real faith is simply believing that God is not a liar.

Satan’s very first lie was a planned attack against Eve’s trust in what God had told her (Genesis 3). She replaced God’s word with Satan’s, and the result was disastrous. 

The devil doesn’t often get Christians to believe lies based on logic (although he does disguise them that way). He gets personal. He goes straight to the heart and attacks your relationship with God. He doesn’t care how religious you are, how many rituals you keep, how many works you do, if he can only keep you shrinking away from the presence of God, because that’s where real change happens and where we reach our true tornado-riding potential in the Spirit.

Surely, signs and wonders inspire and build faith. But real faith is responding to your life in the way of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” (Daniel 3:16-18).  

That’s personal. They refused to serve other gods. I hate to tell you, but fear is an idol. These three young men knew God well enough that their conviction was more powerful than the idol of fear. They knew that God’s plan was best, because they knew that God was good. They trusted Him.

Turn around and tell the devil, “We have no need to answer you in this matter.” THAT is FAITH.

Trust is something I’ve been learning a lot about over the past few months. I’ve been coming to believe Him when He says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33).  

For my whole life up to this point, my prayer routine has consisted primarily of me telling God everything I needed for Him to do. I’d go through every minute of the upcoming day, asking Him to do this or that for me. I believed big enough that He heard my prayers and that He would do it; but I did not believe enough to trust that He was good and could do it on His own, even if it didn’t look like what I wanted.

This prayer list looked like great trust because I was “submitting” every detail to Him. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing in general. Passionate intercession has its place. But there’s a fine line between intercession and control in your personal prayer life. I felt like I had to tell God what I needed or wanted in every situation because I thought that He would forget about me if I didn’t. I thought that my expectations and vision were correct; therefore, I needed to tell God exactly what to do, rather than walking blindly into what He already had planned. If I trusted Him, He might do something I didn’t want.

But when you know His heart, you honestly, genuinely want what He wants, because you know how much He loves you and how irreversible and unconditional His love is.

A week or two ago, I woke up and felt like I heard Him say, “Today is the day. “ I thought, “The day for what?” In my prayer time, I felt nudged to just stop praying for every detail and just say, “Whatever you want, Lord, I will accept.” I was able to say that because, for the first time in my life, I believed so much in God’s love for me that I knew that whatever He had planned was for my good.

It’s a basic concept, but it’s so hard to grasp.

That very day, I received a phone call from the school where I’ve wanted to work for two years, offering me an interview. I got the job and will sign the paperwork today. Yes, ask for what you want from God—and then stop asking. Trust that He has it taken care of, or that He has something even better for you.

It takes tremendous faith to pray big. It takes bigger faith to set aside time just for looking into His face and asking Him nothing. The greatest faith is believing that He is all you need, and that His heart toward you is good.

Trust means throwing away everything to go after God’s own heart. The adventure is just a side effect.

Superman

After an unintended blogging sabbatical, I'm back! Teaching pulled me down into the vortex. Suffice it to say, I love the place where God has called me, but it's been a rocky three months, and spring break was sorely needed. (People who roll their eyes at teachers for getting the summer and holidays off should try teaching for a while without a break.)

Anyway, after He let my brains settle back into my head for a few days, the Lord started speaking to me about aliens. I'm not talking about the Roswell kind. (We'll get to those in a minute.) I'm talking about this verse:

"...remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:12).

Paul was speaking to Gentiles, not Israelites. Before Christ, the Jews had at least known who God was. The Gentiles, however, had NO hope. All they had was a bunch of wooden idols, human sacrifice, empty philosophy, materialism, sin, and death--none of which, of course, present hope or purpose. And nobody had a personal, familiar relationship with God.

Paul goes on: "For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God" (v. 18-19).

Members of the household of God. Because of Jesus, both Jews and Gentiles can experience the beauty of becoming God's children.

I rarely watch movies, but I actually did watch the Superman movie with my family (the new one). It's going to sound silly, but this movie made me think about Jesus.

I think the writers of this comic were searching for a messianic story, and they didn't even know it. Before you roll your eyes, listen to the similarities in plot line. An alien baby from a powerful place appears in the home of two ordinary, blue-collar people. They raise him as their own, but before long, it becomes pretty evident that he has superpowers beyond humanity's abilities. When he is thirty-three (no joke, that was Clark Kent's age in the movie), he has a conversation with his real dad, and he must decide whether or not he is going to risk his life to save the human race.

Maybe Jesus' Father did not appear to Him as a hologram in an abandoned alien outpost in Antarctica, and Jesus probably smiled WAY more during his lifetime than the actor who played Superman. (I mean, haven't they heard of comic relief?) The Man of Steel's eyes are burning with x-ray vision, not the flames of the fire of God. So it's a stupid comparison, but watching the feelings and adaptations of the main character in Man of Steel kind of shocked me into realizing how Jesus must have felt on earth.  You see, at the end of the movie, Clark Kent decides to risk his life for humanity because he has lived with them. He is an alien, but he is also a farm boy from Kansas. He feels distant from most of humankind, yet he LOVES them.

As I watched the movie play out, I realized that Jesus probably had way more feelings wrapped up in humanity than I had thought. I mean, duh, He loves us, but I thought it was some kind of transcendent, pure, self-sacrificial God love. Which, of course, it was. However, Jesus was fully God AND fully man. And He had love toward humanity that was born in a human heart familiar with human experience.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:5-8).

Jesus could have decided not to die for us. But He had grown up with a front row seat to humanity's utter helplessness. He watched deception and sin eat people alive. Maybe He saw his childhood friends abused, neglected, or beaten. Likely, He walked past beggars and sick people on a regular basis. He probably watched family members die. He heard people fighting. He saw daily stress and depression. Maybe kids made fun of Him or beat Him up. As a God-man without sin, He surely felt alienated from humankind; as the son of a carpenter and a girl from Nazareth, He had a love for humanity that came from being one of us.

When He was obedient to death, even death on a cross, He wasn't just dying for an ideal. He was dying for actual human faces that He knew. He died and rose for the joy set before Him: millions and millions of people who would become found in the Father. He loved us with the powerful indwelling love of God through the Holy Spirit. Yet He also loved us because He had been held by a human mama. He had laughed with his friends over a fish fry. He had heard babies, even His own siblings, cry, and had probably seen some of them buried.

He knew our names. He knew just how depraved and messed-up we were, because He had seen everything first hand with his own eyes.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die--but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God (Romans 5:6-9).

Hardly any of us would be willing to give up our lives for even a really good person; yet Christ died for a whole bunch of people who were enslaved to sin. I have to think it was because He had lived among us, and though He had seen the absolute evil that humankind was capable of, He also saw the helpless tears of a people enslaved to evil, captive to the whims of Satan. He loved us because He was God, but He also loved us because He was our brother.

God gave up His only Son for a time, entrusting Him to the care of a regular, run-of-the-mill carpenter family from a small town that nothing good had ever come from. He traded His Son to us in exchange for us to become His children, too.

No doubt the Lord has great compassion for people. Compassion is one of His qualities. He invented it. But for some reason, He wanted to feel it in human skin. He wanted to touch it, to experience it, to let us know: "I'm with you."

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:15-16).

We can draw near to Him, confident of His mercy toward us. His mercy is not a sterile ideal. It is a visceral, living, breathing reality, as profound and personal as one man's blood dripping down a wooden cross.

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation (Romans 5:10-11).

If you have ever felt estranged, unwanted, outcast, remember this: you are not an alien anymore.

God Himself didn't come and live here with us simply so that He could die an antiseptic, legalistic death. He didn't rise again so that we could be labeled "saved" and carry on with the same lack of purpose and identity as before.  He could have done it that way. He could have simply made a business transaction with the devil, a ransom of power, a signed contract. But that would make us His prisoners-of-war and not His children.

It took being one of us to make us one with Him.  He died and He rose so that you could become a member of the household of God. That's intimacy.

Just as Mary held Jesus, your heavenly Father holds you. Receive His mercy today.

Baby Daddy: A Christmas Revelation

He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, "Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him.--Mark 6:1-3

And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.--Luke 2:6-7

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.--John 14:18-20

"Is this not the son of Mary?" That question would have hung in the air like an accusation. Everyone knew (or thought they knew) that Jesus was illegitimate. Where did he get off, doing miracles in the name of God? How dare he--a despised orphan, a fatherless castaway--go around telling them he knew THE Father of creation. What's more--that he was His own son.

Didn't he know who his mother was? The people of Jesus' hometown didn't give Him a family name. They called Him by the world's epithets: unloved, rejected, unclaimed, insane, futureless.

That's because they hadn't been there thirty years earlier in a stable in Bethlehem where a baby was wrapped up and placed in a manger. They didn't know what the shepherds knew: that angels sang when Jesus was born because He was the only person in all of creation since Adam to NOT be born an orphan.

When I was a little girl, I was fascinated with the figure of the baby Jesus in our manger scene. I would take it and study it every Christmas. I would let my sister put in the other figures, but I had to place the baby Jesus in his rightful place, between Mary and Joseph, where the motionless shepherds and wise men could stare blankly at him from their porcelain faces. Something felt right in that ritual, physically placing the baby where he was supposed to be. Even then, I was intrigued by the mystery of the baby Jesus.

The Bible says that Jesus is the "second Adam" (1 Corinthians 15:45). But Adam was created a full-grown man; why did Jesus have to be a baby? Why couldn't He just descend to earth in a pod like Superman, or emerge an adult from a seashell like in that story about Aphrodite? I can tell you one thing, it would've made a pretty dramatic impact if He had washed up on the shore of the Sea of Galilee as a full-grown man and said to the fishermen, "Hey, follow me."

Superman and Aphrodite aren't real (sorry, comics fans), but Jesus is. And He was born in the same way all of us are. (I'll spare you the details.) What's more, He was born into a stable, surrounded by smelly animals and probably a lot of other people, who were likely talking about the suspicious and inconvenient circumstances of this birth.

We can imagine that "all of the fullness of the Diety dwells bodily" in the full-grown figure of Jesus (Colossians 2:9). But imagine all of that goodness and purity and power in a baby. Probably no more than six or seven pounds--just a baby, too little to talk, too helpless to do much more than cry and sleep.

Yes, the body of the man Jesus on the cross reveals impactfully His humility. But this is a fresh revelation for me this Christmas: the figure of the baby Jesus gives humility a sweetness and touches a chord somewhere even deeper in our hearts.

That's because if there is a baby, there is a father. Even the people of Nazareth knew that. A full-grown man can try to make it on his own. But a baby represents the existence of someone with ability and authority who will raise this helpless little being from infant to adult. A baby represents the presence of a patriarch who will make this tiny, seemingly useless human into an heir based on nothing but the testimony of blood.

Sadly, in our world, there are too many babies whose fathers are not present. But that doesn't change the fact that the fathers exist. You cannot create a baby without a father. It is impossible.

So the miracle was not as much that a virgin conceived without a father, but that there was a father, and the father was God himself.

If you think it's weird, you're not the only one. I'm sure Mary thought it was weird more than anybody.

Children are precious to God. They are so precious that He allowed His son to become one of them--helpless, weak, having done nothing yet to deserve accolade or fame--and then put on a concert of angels singing, "This is my Son; in Him I am well pleased." When Jesus was too little to defend Himself, too little to throw a punch, too little to talk, even too little to walk, His Father protected Him from Herod's wrath. His Father carefully chose earthly parents to take care of Him. According to Jewish law, His Father gave Him His own name and an inheritance. And the inheritance was His own Spirit, His own image, His own words, which brought light to an orphaned people and adopted them as children of God.

You see, the Nazarites thought that Jesus was fatherless and abandoned, a nobody; but just the opposite was true. He was the first baby born who had a heavenly Father. And He was born that way so that we could have a heavenly Father, too.

Very few of us can identify with the brutality Jesus experienced on the cross, but all of us can identify with a baby. We are all babies. It is important for us to come to the cross and realize that He became our sin. But it is also important for us to come to the stable and realize that He came as a son. He was a son first.

Jesus had to be born so that He could be the "firstborn among many brothers" (Romans 8:29): the first of a new family of people who would never be orphans again. When the devil points at us and says, "You're an orphan!", Jesus points to the angels who sang in a starry sky the night He was born and says, "No, we are fathered. We are loved."

The angel choirs are singing for you, too.

Merry Christmas!

Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts; his name is the Lord; exult before him! Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. God settles the solitary in a home...--Psalm 68:4-6

Amazing Grace

I know I haven't written in a while. October and November are kind of make-or-break months for new teachers, and writing got pushed to the back corner as I attempted to survive. I made it to Thanksgiving break, though! And there's no other reason for my survival than the very title of this post. 

So here I am popping up again to tell you about grace.

You see, I've been struggling with grace because it is difficult for me to grant grace to myself. As I panicked and fought through my second six weeks of teaching, I started to recognize thought patterns of unforgiveness and hatred toward me. Coworkers even commented on my self-hating speech. I was crying out for help. 

Of course, this affected the way I saw the kids. When I was short-tempered with me, I was short-tempered with them. When I was meditating on God's love toward me, I was overflowing with love for my students.

It seems obvious, right? But this internal vacillation between gripe and grace is pretty normal in a fallen world. Too often, we look at ourselves with our own eyes rather than His. We make our failures huge and His grace very small. I think the reason we do this is because we don't really understand grace. 

I know that biblical "grace" means "unmerited favor"--not only that God does not destroy us because of our sin, but that He goes above and beyond to extend favor and authority and blessing to people who utterly, truly do not deserve it. It goes beyond merciful salvation and into the promises of abundance in God's kingdom. Mercy would be a parent holding back his hand before he slaps a misbehaving child; grace is the same hand being extended for a hug or a present to the same little brat. 

Most people would consider that to be bad parenting. However, the same people would also say that a Toddlers in Tiaras mom or a super-competitive sports dad demanding perfection from his or her child is also a bad parent. (Yet that's what they expect from God, who has been a dad for waaaaayyy longer than they could imagine...like since the beginning of time.) Grace does not deflect natural consequences for bad behavior, but it does allow the irrevocable right to join the family of God for eternity. It's not sterile, bureaucratic police authority; it's flesh-and-blood parental authority. It's an adoption sealed in blood that legally transfers the rights of a Son onto the adopted party, regardless of how sinful or weak that person is. 

So I had the scholarly definition down, but that didn't change how I was condemning myself every day for being imperfect at work as well as in my personal life. Basically, I was my own psycho stage mom. Nothing was good enough for me. So because I was struggling with the concept of grace, I asked the greatest Teacher of all what He wanted me to know about it. 

I am still listening, but I wanted to share what He told me so far.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. --Philippians 2:4-11

Talk about the totality of authority. EVERY knee shall bow, and EVERY tongue shall confess His name. But the aim of this passage isn't Christ's authority. It's about the servitude, humility, and obedience of Jesus--which are made that much more unbelievable because He had so much authority. 

Obedience, servitude, humility, and sacrifice are not words that we like to talk about in our Bible studies. But Jesus reminded me of them the other day when I asked. These qualities bear the nature and character of grace. 

God Himself came to earth and served us, even to the point of a humiliating and excruciating death. 

He told me to think about when He washed the disciples' feet, which seemed pretty random until I really read it and thought about it. (It's in John 13 if you want to check it out.)

Jesus told Peter, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand." (Story of my life.) They didn't get it. They were thinking in the world's economy. Jesus was greater, therefore He should have his feet washed, not them. Peter cried, "You shall never wash my feet." (Save the drama for your mama, bro.)

Or, as John the Baptist put it, "I am not worthy to untie His sandal." It seems like, initially, Jesus couldn't win with these guys: John wouldn't dunk Him in water, and Peter wouldn't let Him dunk his feet in water. Nobody was willing to get wet. Both were submitting to a worldly ideology: honor should be surrendered to the more honorable party.

Right?

But that is not the attitude of grace. Grace says that the greater shall serve the lesser. (Ever read about Jacob and Esau?) Grace is a powerful person with legal authority surrendering his rights to serve someone who has no power and no authority. God's grace extends even beyond that. In His death on the cross, He surrendered His rights as a son and heir. In His resurrection, He got them back--and conferred them to you and me. It was the greatest act of service of all time.

Wipe your brains off the wall, because I know your head just exploded. 

Jesus told Peter, "If I do not wash you, you have no share with me." He meant, "If I don't serve you, you cannot receive my grace. If you cannot receive my grace, you cannot come into my kingdom."

In other words, serving others isn't true obedient service if you think that you're a piece of junk. True service involves sacrifice. People who think they are a piece of junk have no problem serving because they already think they are less than other people anyway. They're not sacrificing anything. In fact, they're just confirming a negative identity they already believe in. But a gracious person knows who he is and what authority he holds, and he serves anyway. 

Once again....#mindblown.

The Person of Grace--Jesus Christ--knew He was the Son of God. He never had a doubt about it. But He chose to wash feet and die on a cross for people who were beyond undeserving. It seems ridiculous in the world's economy. Not only was it the greatest act of service of all time, it was the greatest sacrifice of all time.

And that gets me to the main point.

If service is the action of unconditional love, grace is the attitude of unconditional love. Grace chooses to honor those who are considered less worthy of honor. In fact, grace delights to honor outcasts, rejected orphans, failures, screw-ups, those lacking in every refinement, the dirty, the broken, the weak, people with snot coming out of their noses and mean words coming out of their mouths.

What's more....

It's trite but true: you can't give what you can't receive. If you're in Peter's position, proclaiming that Jesus will NEVER EVER NOT IN A MILLION YEARS wash your feet, you have no part in His kingdom. His gracious sacrifice is what gave YOU the right to enter as a son or daughter.

When He washed His disciples' feet, Jesus said, "For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you." He went on to say, "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me." There seems to be a lot of reception there, as well as a commandment (reiterated by Jesus throughout the gospels) to serve one another. The only way to truly serve others is with an attitude of grace. And you can't have an attitude of grace if you can't receive His grace toward you.

You know why? Because His grace--His greatest act of service--conferred upon you the rights and authority that He has. And if you cannot receive that service, you cannot receive that new identity as "Son" or "Daughter," heir of power and authority in the kingdom of God. And if you can't accept that honored position, you cannot choose to step down from honor and become a servant. If you believe yourself to be un-honorable, your service means nothing. Your service and sacrifice are only as valuable as you are. 

So my self-condemnation and stage mom antics are not only a slap in the face to Jesus' sacrifice of service, they're a direct insult to the attitude of His heart and the nature of His person. 

I'm still trying to grasp it. All I know is, I have been honored with the commission to serve children--the class of people most often rejected and discounted by the world, those considered the most helpless and least deserving of favor. In the world's economy, children are a burden or annoyance, if they're not outright disgusting. The world says they are valuable not for what they are, but for what they could be. Grace says that what they are is worthy of honor. 

I think God compares us to children for a reason.

If I show my kids honor by serving them, putting them before myself (even though many times their behavior makes them completely undeserving), I am acting with an attitude of grace. And that's one way that, like Jesus, I can look just like my Dad.

Sacrifice and service both start with grace. While sacrifice and service are in your hands, grace is in your heart.

I'll close with this: that yes, grace is an attitude that motivates action. But grace is also a person.  Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). If you want to know grace, just ask Him who He is.

Suitcases

When I pack for a trip, I pay less attention to organization and more to volume--that is, fitting as much stuff as is humanly possible in my suitcase. As a result, I often cannot find the thing I'm looking for when I arrive at my destination. I make sure to pack for every possible situation short of extraterrestrial abduction, but I end up unprepared because I don't put everything in a place where I can find it.

What's more, I'm usually too lazy to pack it all back up every day, which means that my clothes end up all over the floor of the room where I'm staying. It just takes too much effort to take all of the junk I've crammed in my suitcase and repack it once I dig it out. My hotel room ends up looking like a fashion excavation site. Red tape is needed. Some of you are cringing right now and thinking to yourselves, "I will NEVER travel with her!" I don't blame you. As Paul would say, your condemnation is just.

The fact is, as a traveler, I usually think I'm overprepared because I've packed everything I can think of, but I end up unable to use the helpful things I've brought because I've packed them up with a bunch of useless junk. I'm confused and frazzled because I haven't taken the time to organize my suitcase.

I wonder if my heart doesn't look the same way.

I'm a passionate person with a wild imagination. God made me that way on purpose. He made no mistake and no second guesses. But that also means that my mind and heart can run away with me. Rabbit trails of thought entangle with fleshly emotions to create a monster. Most of the thoughts are worries or daydreams. They center on the future--an alternate reality future of worst case scenarios and crazy fantasy plot lines at the same time. These thoughts burrow deep into my heart, creating moods that are just off the wall, kitten-with-a-string excited or soul-crushingly anxious. My mind manipulates my emotions until both look like my overflowing suitcase, bursting with wrinkled thoughts and feelings that I think I need. In reality, they're just a tripping hazard or distraction at best. At worst, they're destructive to my relationships with others because they are spilling out into their lives, and they are burying the things I really need.

Worries, daydreams, and over packing have one thing in common: they are all born of a desire for control.

I know I don't have to tell you that basically none of the things I worry or dream about have ever actually happened. That's a lot of brain energy to waste. Yet I continue to think of them over and over because, for some crazy reason, it makes me feel like thinking about them somehow gives me control. And desire for control is just fear; and fear is distrust of God. The whole thing is a cycle of selfishness.

"Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony" (Colossians 3:12-14).

It's really not that complicated. But sometimes I can't find these things to put them on because they're buried under a pile of selfishness.

Earlier this week, while I was driving, the Holy Spirit abruptly but very gently told me that I am very selfish in my thoughts. I like to retreat to a kind of enchanted Willy Wonka chocolate factory in my thoughts and emotions, a place where I am in charge. This place is especially appetizing when I feel like I've failed or haven't met some (imaginary) standard I've created for myself. This place is all about me because it nurses my wounded pride and doesn't allow my thoughts to center on anyone but me--not the people around me, certainly, and definitely not the Lord.

Jesus gave us one command, y'all. ONE: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12).

And again, 1 John reiterates: "Beloved, I am writing to you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word you have heard. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light but hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling" (2:7-10).

There's no stumbling for a guy like that because his stuff is picked up off the floor.

When my thoughts are about me and my future, they're overwhelmingly complex, convoluted, and emotion-inducing. When they're about Jesus, they're often at the same time about selflessness toward others, and they hold for me a respite much sweeter and eternal than the pleasures of the chocolate factory.

If I'm being honest, I haven't often experienced this respite because I'm too worried about cramming all my thoughts in my mind like socks in a suitcase. But today, as I was praying about getting freedom from my mind, I saw a picture of the Lord gently picking up a suitcase...and then dumping it completely out, giving it a good few shakes to get the things wedged in the corners out of there. Ouch.

You're probably thinking about how you pack. One of my friends is the most efficient packer I have ever met. She can roll things up, wedge them in shoes, and basically fit your whole house in a two by two bag. It's amazing. She's like Mary Poppins.

But at the same time, this friend has had problems her life with efficiently overpacking her heart--and then zipping it shut.

Maybe she is free from a lot of that now, but her story reminds me of another way our hearts are like suitcases: when we are through packing them with unnecessary comforts, we close them and fasten them shut. We want to carry around our issues and insecurities, always coming back to baggage claim to pick them up no matter how heavy or ugly they are. We are even proud of how organized we are, how much we can fit in a small space.

And then they explode in our hotel room just like mine always does: overflowing, not with good things, but with distraction, futility, and regret. They affect our relationships with others--the one and only thing Jesus commanded us to protect.

I'm not getting down on myself here, because I know that this is a process. We all have struggled with packing our suitcases wrongly. It's time to simplify and do what Jesus commanded the 72:

"Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road" (Luke 10:4).

In other words, leave the baggage behind. You don't have time.

It's not easy to let God turn your heart and mind over and dump them out; but it sure makes your journey lighter. And the best thing is, in Jesus, you don't have to struggle to pack all your insecurities into your bag. Instead, He gives you a completely new bag--one big enough to hold Himself. Then He fills it with His love.

And it's ok--it's even His desire, in fact--for that to run over, onto the hotel floor, out into the streets, and into the whole world.

"And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19).

That goes for shampoo, underwear, and all the acceptance and love you long to hold in your heart.

Put Your Shoes On

I haven't written in more than a month! But I forgive myself because I have been writing....assignments, lesson plans, emails, flashcards, etc. etc. etc. The first month of teaching has been a blur of up-and-down feelings and constant motion.

But it has also been a time of God working in my life. Naturally--He is always up to something, and He uses every ounce of what you experience in the natural to weave a tapestry of His purpose in your heart. He doesn't waste a drop.

Stressed at the enormity of the task of teaching first grade, I was reading Ephesians this morning. Ephesians is my go-to book for realigning my perspective and purpose.

Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.--Ephesians 6:14-15

I could go on and on about the various parts of the whole armor of God, but I want to concentrate on the shoes. Think about your morning routine. Probably the last thing you put on is shoes. You put them on right before you step out the door. They are the last part of the armor, the part that signals, "Ok, now I'm ready to go." They represent, as the verse above tells us, readiness.

But the Bible doesn't say that they are shoes to "kick the devil's face in," "trip the enemy," or "run and chase them down, shank 'em in the kidney, and stomp on their heads." (Which, to be totally honest, is more my style.)

According to this verse, the shoes that make you ready are made of peace. 

What an odd word in the midst of a passage about armor and warfare.

Furthermore, these shoes are not for making you run but for making you stand--a strange thing to do when the enemy is coming at you. It would seem far more logical to either charge back at them or run away.

I think I've been running a lot lately--either toward my perceived problems or away from them. Running is an action. It is born from the belief that it is up to me to "do something." When I'm faced with an impossible task, I avoid it like the plague, or I charge into it full-force. Like, if there were a physical representation of the fight, it would look like me running full-speed into a brick wall and pushing with all my might, OR running in terror in the opposite direction. If you know me, you know that the running-into-a-brick-wall with stubborn "I can do this!!!" resolve is my most common go-to response; but both reactions look like ME doing something to preserve MYSELF, conquering in my own strength or retreating. The problem with me making those choices is that, either way, I'm going to collapse in exhaustion eventually and then be so stressed out that I can't even sleep.

This may or may not be a cycle in my current lifestyle.

I've heard people say, "God will never give you more than you can bear." Frankly, I think that's total BS (excuse my letter-cursing). He will most definitely give you more than you can bear, because He never intended for you to bear it in the first place. He has intended all along for you to stand in those ready shoes of peace while He fights the battle. If you think you have even one ounce of strength to do something for Him, then you're just lying to yourself. What He's called us to do is so much bigger than people can do.

Ironically, yes, we do have to make a choice to participate, and we do work harder for Him than we would for an earthly master. But when grace is flowing through the whole thing, it doesn't feel that way.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.--Matthew 11:28-30

If you're anxious, it's because you think you're the one responsible for getting the job done. You're taking out your little sword and running at your tasks with all your might. And that's a dangerous place to be. I know, because I am speaking from that place. That place will break you. The yoke of the world is too heavy.

If your shoulders feel burdened today, like things are piling on and piling on without stopping, then you need to take a look at your feet. You're probably barefoot.

You need to put on the readiness of the gospel of peace. This peace isn't some kitschy word-decal for your wall, or an ambiguous term we use to sing Christmas songs. Joe's Crab Shack doesn't have a copyright on it. This peace belongs to one person: Jesus Christ. And if you are found in Him, you have this peace at the ready.

This peace is knowing that your future is sealed up and that you belong to the Creator of the universe (Romans 1:6, 2 Corinthians 1:22). It's the peace of knowing that nothing can go wrong for you, no matter what (Romans 8:28). It's peace that comes from the undeniable love of a Father that anesthetizes and obliterates fear (1 John 4:16-18). It's the peace of eternity. It's not escapism; in fact, it's tapping into divine reality, which supersedes anything you experience in the world.

If you have your whole armor on but no shoes, you might as well go home. You can't leave your feet--the part of your body designed for standing--unprotected in the heat of the battle.

So if you're running today with no shoes, give your torn and bleeding feet a rest. Cut some time away from your duties and get into the warm, inviting foot bath of the Word of God. Don't condemn yourself for not being able to "cut it," because your flesh feet were never meant to stand against the spiritual forces of darkness. You weren't designed to beat your body against a brick wall...or a mountain, if you will. (Trust me, my bruised-up body knows.)

Frankly, your opinion of yourself doesn't really matter, so you might as well not even waste your time thinking about your inadequacies or measuring your abilities. It bears no relevance whether you think you're enough, because He is enough.

And knowing that is a treasure that no one on earth can give you.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.--Philippians 4:7