Search and Reveal: the only balance between self praise and blame

There is a great value to self-examination within the day to day walk with and after Christ, but it ought to be more than a solely self-examination. It is why the Psalmist prayed, “Search me O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Ps. 139:23-24) When we do the necessary work of self-examination we must invite God to search along with us and reveal the things He will. We do this because when left to our own, we have two primary tendencies, both of which are destructive to the honest heart after God.

Our first tendency is to praise ourselves too highly. If we do not ask God to search our hearts and reveal, we will make excuses for every wicked or troublesome thing in our heart and mind. We will make light of dark things, which ought to be dealt with.

Our other tendency is to blame ourselves too heavily. If we do not ask God to search and reveal, we will tirelessly break ourselves down. For some of us God is entirely more gracious toward our sin than we would ever dream of being for ourselves.This is why we need God to search and reveal our true heart’s condition.

God is fully aware of our tendency toward one of these extremes (I find myself in the latter most often). Because He is aware of our tendency, and because He knows too much SELF-examination does more harm than good, He presents in the Psalms how we ought to search and reveal the sin in our lives. We go about this with humility and grace, only God can accomplish that balance with perfection. Only God will draw us in humility and grace for self in order to balance between the extremes of praise and blame.

Doing without the gospel

Once I come face to face with the real gospel of Jesus, it will well up within me either of great appreciation or joy or a rebellion and resentment. Many of us, particularly many Americans, resent a vital part of the gospel, namely the giftedness of it. Once many are face to face with the fact they have to accept a gift rather than give and give and give of their earning efforts, we are resentful of the gospel.

The gospel makes clear we are “justified as a GIFT by His GRACE through the redemption which is in Jesus Christ” (Rom. 3:24). Oswald Chambers writes, “We cannot earn or win anything from God; we must either receive it as a gift or do without it.”

Here is a stark challenge to the way many of us try to understand the gospel. If you are not receiving it as a gift and trying to work for it with all your own efforts, you are missing it. If you are trying to work and earn God’s love, you are choosing to do without it.

It is gift and it is to be received. It does not require your giving or your work. It is selfish pride just as much for me to refuse a gift, because even in that refusal I make way more of myself and less of God.

Savior before Teacher

Who is Jesus to me? He has to first be Savior and LORD before He can be my Teacher. Anyone who only calls Him Teacher must be hopeless, because no pupil or disciple could really accomplish His teaching; not even the best ever student could accomplish his teaching.

I need Jesus first to be Savior and LORD. I need first that very realization that I cannot accomplish even a portion of his teaching, because THEN I am ‘poor and humble in spirit’ enough to know my need for rescue from my undeserving and incapable condition.

Only then can I look with any confidence at His teaching for my life as His disciple and follower. Without His rescue I would only live in despair all the days of my life in comparison to the life he teaches me to live.

Ozzie Chambers wrote, “He came to make me what He teaches me I should be.”

I am saved and controlled and covered by His Spirit in those places I wish I could do on my own but could never hope to accomplish on my own. If I begin with my poor and humble need, Jesus says, “You are blessed.” (Matthew 5)

You will be happy if you begin with your humble view and realization that you could never accomplish the half of His teaching on your own if not for His Spirit and salvation within.

Do not overlook the rescue

Anything you come through is by the grace and activity of God.

Also, anything you did not ever have to go through is by the grace and activity of God.

Thank God today for all the things you have been spared from having to go through.

Loving eyes

His love is more potent than any other
because His eyes are more powerful than the rest
His eyes see through the filth and crust
they see through perversion

His eyes caught and catch glimpses
of the Divine intention hidden
in every person in every way
His first loving act is to give
new eyes

Grace of Preaching

The story goes, a small church somewhere had transitioned pastors and began to see outrageous growth. There were not only people coming to church, but there were many who came to Christ.

An interested person visited to see what was happening there, and was able to speak with an elder.

“So what was it your old pastor preached.”
“He preached that we were all sinners in need of grace that can only be found in Christ.”
“What is it this new pastor is preaching?”
“He preaches that we are all sinners in need of grace that can only be found in Christ.”
“I fail to see a difference.”
“Well, this new pastor preaches it with tears in his eyes.”

I must say the fact that God continues to give me opportunities to speak and preach is all grace. That he continues to give me opportunities to speak about the gospel of his ridiculous love is Amazing Grace.

I have been made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace…to me the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach the unfathomable riches of Christ.

Every opportunity to preach the gospel is a reminder of how very little merit I have to deserve this honor and responsibility. I never take it so lightly as to miss how desperately undeserving I actually am. I am “less than the least of all God’s people” who is continually given ludicrous grace to preach the outrageous, reckless, raging fury that is the love of God.

An open letter to my daughters’ husbands (or any boy they bring around)

It is important for me to start off telling you how much my wife and I dislike you. I imagine my daughter has told you not to worry, ‘my dad does not like any guy that comes home’ and she is correct, partly. She is correct in telling you I dislike every guy who comes around, but she is very mistaken to tell you not to worry. I do not like you, but it is also important for you to know I believe in grace and mercy.

These are gifts I have received a great deal of in my life. You will, with my sincerest apology, have a much harder time receiving from me what I was so freely given. And for further perspective on this matter, know that I was given this grace from One who had far less reason to give it to me than I have for you…like eternally less! You know what I mean?

What am I saying? You ought to know what I mean, or you and I should not be having this conversation.

All this being said, there are a great number of things you are going to need to know and listen to if you are to pursue my daughter; that being the first thing: my daughter is to be pursued. She is not to be conquered or won like a little boy’s game. This is going to require an enormous amount of your time and even larger amount of your energy. If this is the first I have ever heard of you, you may walk away now and begin a larger and longer pursuit.

If you have been pursuing with integrity, friendship, and honor, there are now a few other things you ought to know. It is an expectation that you will one day provide for my daughter, but listen very carefully to me…

Food, shelter, and finances does not make you a provider. You are nothing more than an assistance program.

A man is to provide far more than finances. How prepared are you to provide presence? You will need to learn and prove that you know how to be entirely present with and for my daughter. Do not assume that being in the same physical space makes you present. Do you have the capacity to be present emotionally, spiritually, and integrally? If you do not, then this conversation is over and you have some work to do.

If you need to hang around a bit and watch the way I love her mother, you are welcomed to do so. Watch and learn!

Because you must understand this; if I am ever (and this remains a large “IF”) to give my daughter’s hand, it will only be because I place her into hands I trust will be present in at least a fraction of the way I have strived to be for her since long before you ever came around.

Still the only MAN in Bryleigh/Haddisen’s life,

PC

ps. I still dislike you

Intimacy in the Brokenness

Sometimes I strive so hard at living with the most excellent virtue, in absolute piety, in “Christian perfection” of sorts that I become more and more strained, confined and closed in. We can be so dependent upon upholding the rules and expectations we place on ourselves that we forget the relationship we were intended for.

I think of the comparison between the prodigal and his brother.  I think of the difference in the levels of intimacy with the father they both resemble.  I find that in his brokenness and humility, the prodigal experiences far greater intimacy with the father than does his sinless, pious and self-righteous brother.

The true site of the Christian disciple is one of a man or woman who is able to praise God for all things, including his own sin, he who is not obsessed with the perfect portrayal of self and spirituality.  She who is not complacent and shackled by a practical life.  He who strives more for the relationship than the rules and understands that he has, is and will fail but can realize that God expects more failure from him than he ever does from himself.  She who realizes we do not have to come groveling to God with a clear presentation of our sins and failures IN ORDER TO BE forgiven, but realizes the prodigal’s father did not ask for an explanation, and Jesus did not ask the adulterous woman for an apology or confession.  The disciple realizes that we will not be judged now or in the end for our sins because we have already been judged and found not guilty, but that God desires we show up in his embrace and accept his love.

Celebrate the prodigal too quickly

I thought some more about the prodigal today.  I have read and heard that story on countless occasions.  As a child who longs for grace, unconditional Agape love, I cheer, with all Christians, for the prodigal and his father.  We never grow tired of hearing this parable, and we cheer with delight in our hearts at the sight of the fathers unconditional embrace and the prodigal’s humility.  We imagine the prodigal’s poverty and leap for joy at the prodigal’s humble return.  We see the prodigal lag his way home and watch the Father run to his battered and poor son.  We go on the Father’s joyful demand to get IPA and T-bone steaks with excellent joy for the prodigal’s return.  We read with great joy.  We cheer for the prodigal.

We live like the older brother.  When the story is read and enjoyed, I walk past drunken homeless people on the streets.  After the thrilling STORY is over, I get pissed off at the people around me.  I weep for joy at the prodigal’s return home to loving arms, and then I write a scathing status update to someone.  I get all caught up in the greatest PLOT of grace and unconditional love ever uttered or written, and I have the hardest time accepting continued mistakes and life patterns in my own family members.

I work hard to be the best Christian I can be for crying out loud, and here are all these people around me who aren’t even trying. Here are all those people who do not understand that I am a Christian who wants to be all I can be, and they just go on like it doesn’t make a difference.  I believe in a God of unconditional love and grace and I loath the congregations who don’t get it right.  I am the prodigal here…not them!

Right?

It is not just a parable.  It is not just a fictional thriller to read and put back on the shelf until the next time.  It is a story that serves as a humbling reflection of the reality we live every day.  Like every parable, it is easy to associate myself with the good guy, the hero, but I can ALWAYS equally associate myself with the villian.

My heart breaks when I realize I cheer for the prodigal and live like the older brother.

A Hypocrites Precursor

What you read on these pages will not always reflect perfectly my life’s actions.  Thus the struggle of living out the way we wish we could.  Thus the fight to do what we want to do instead of doing what we do not want to do, and what we do not want to do…this we do.

I am a writer.  This means I love to write.  This means I express well through written (typed) word.  But I am also a daily-broken human being with imperfect feelings, hurts, pains, angers and frustrations.  I resound the words of Phillip Yancey, “I soon discover that I write about spiritual disciplines far better than I practice them.”  The concepts I write about, valid as they may be, are nevertheless hard to live.  Does this mean I do not WANT to live them?  Of course not, but I suck at it.  The reason righteousness is so hard is simply because I suck at it.

This challenges my comment toward pastors, teachers and Christians, “Practice what you preach.”  Who am I to say they are not trying to practice what they preach, but like me, remain children of an Abba who understands they are humans who cannot wish themselves into perfect and righteous action.  They who struggle to do what they wish they would, but it does not and should not take away from their exhausting desire to fight for righteousness and holiness and unconditional love received and given.