Be Holy

 "The lie we’re telling ourselves is that compromising holiness will ensure church growth. That’s false. Embracing and raising up those who are faithful and obedient, as witnesses to our culture, will attract the world. Without holiness, Jesus Christ can’t be seen in us by the world; and without love, the world will resist the truth of this holiness.”

— David Bennett

It's becoming increasingly tricky and challenging to be counter-culture as we try to hold to the holiness of Jesus while loving and living in our broken world. Reading this reminded me that, despite the difficulty and indignity it may cause, it's a cause absolutely worth giving my life to. 

"Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” — 1 Peter 1:13-16

God Is Love

"Love, I have come to learn, is not God. Flip that. God is love. The God revealed in Jesus Christ is the definition of love. This difference changes everything."

— David Bennett

God is love. (1 John 4:7-8)

God so loved the world. (John 3:16) 

God showed his love among us. (1 John 4:9-11)

God's unfailing love for you will not be shaken. (Isaiah 54:10)

The Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Give thanks to the God of heaven. His love endures forever. (Psalm 136:26)

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! (1 John 3:1)

The love of God is fierce and says, “I will not leave you as orphans” (John 14:18). But it also says, “Pick up your cross and follow me!” (Matt. 16:24). It’s not a cheap love; it is a holy love that changes lives.

The Thunderclap of God

 "If we come to Scripture with our minds made up, expecting to hear from it an echo of our own thoughts and never the thunderclap of God’s, then indeed he will not speak to us and we shall only be confirmed in our own prejudices. We must allow the Word of God to confront us, disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior."

—John Stott

Confrontation is not a popular thing these days. When something or someone is different to us or disagrees with our beliefs, they just get cancelled. No time is invested to try and understand and evaluate the difference and see if an adjustment on our part is required. If we don't like something, we just get to oppose or ignore it. 

Are we doing that with the Bible too? Are we just ignoring the parts we don't like? Cancelling the concepts that go against the prevailing opinions and culture? Only accepting the ideas that make us feel good and important? Leaving out the things that make us feel challenged and uncomfortable? Are we just looking for an echo of our own thoughts? 

Or are we truly asking God to speak, to thunder His truth out over us, even when it confronts and disturbs our happy little existence? Truly believing that all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that we, the servants of God, may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Tim 2:16-17).

God Is Good.

Satan has no more effective weapon in his arsenal than to make us question—not so much whether God exists, but whether God is really good. And perhaps today that question rings extra loud in your heart.

So in the most basic of ways I just want to remind you of the simple, yet eternally profound truth: God is good. 

"Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him!" - Psalm 34:8

"The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth." - Exodus 34:6

"The Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting." - Psalm 100:5

"The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knows those who trust in Him." - Nahum 1:7

"You are good, and do good; teach me Your statutes." - Psalm 119:68

Speak this truth to your soul, preach it to your heart and mind: The Lord is good. 

Patchwork

"Jesus told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old."
- Luke 5:36

God is in the business of complete overhaul renovation, not trendy patchwork improvements. What a zombie needs isn’t to be taken to H&M to pick out a new outfit and taken to a fancy barber for a fresh, hipster haircut. What a zombie needs is for someone to come and make it human again from the inside out.

There’s a way of doing Christianity that’s more like trying to give a zombie a makeover, like white-washing tombs, than it is like dead people being made alive, broken people being made new.

It's not about trying to add Jesus as a noddy badge to our high-functional, self-righteous, ticking all the religious boxes, striving existence. Tearing off some of Jesus when it suits us to patch the holes of our loneliness, sadness, disappointments, insecurities. 

It's all or nothing. We need to be born again of the Spirit, receive a new heart of flesh that is after God to replace our hearts of stone. We need to be transformed by His power through the renewing of our minds, and open up all the doors that Jesus knocks at allowing Him to fill us in every way. 

As John Legend would say, "All of [Jesus] wants all of you." Just little patches will never do.

The Wine Always Runs Out

 In John 2, we read about Jesus turning water into wine. We all know how it goes: the party starts going south real quick, Mary asks Jesus to intervene to save the bridal couple's shame, Jesus steps in and BAM best wine ever! 

Now, being someone who has neither gotten married nor even slightly enjoyed or desired wine, this story has the potential to miss the mark. But the one point we can all absolutely relate to on every level is that the wine always runs out. 

Sure, it will look different for each of us, but for all of us, at some stage and in some way, things will turn south and the good party times will start to dry up. People change. Plans don't work out. We let ourselves down. The bank balance leaks out. The roof leaks in the rain. Our grace for our boss/spouse/children/neighbour also leaks out of our flawed, broken barrel. As Jeremiah said in 2v13, we are broken cisterns that can hold no water. The wine always runs out.  

That's the bad news. But the good news is that Jesus makes the best wine. 

Jesus can take the average and depleted and make it not only better but abundantly so. As Paul Miller, reflecting on this says, “When Jesus shows up to a party, it doesn’t just keep going. It gets better.”

Beyond that, Jesus points us to the best wedding reception the world will ever know. It'll make the Royal weddings look cheap and boring. The Marriage Supper of the Lamb where communion remembering Jesus' work will become a literal feast in the very presence of Jesus, paid for with His own body and blood (aka the best wine). It's the banquet that every delicious meal we’ve ever tasted is but a shadow of. It is the reception every one of our lonely hearts longs for. 

The cheap and nasty box wine of all the earthly things we put our hope will always run out. But at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, the wine never runs out because Jesus the Lamb IS the Wine. And He promises to be with us forever. Once again, He is keeping the best wine until last. 

Truly, our cup does overflow. It overflows with the wine of Jesus’s neverending grace to us.

Broken & Beloved

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."
- Hebrews 12:1-3

On this, Tim Keller writes, “What was His joy? His joy was you. His joy was me.” 

As Sammy Rhodes says, "The Beloved was broken so that everyone who feels broken might become the beloved of God through Him." That is the joy of Jesus. His joy was entering into our broken world, our broken situations, our broken lives, and taking that brokenness upon himself that we might become whole and be reconciled to our Creator. 

The reality is that our brokenness is very real, and in and of ourselves there’s sweet nothing we can do about it. There is an honest relief in admitting that fact. 

But there is a quiet, constant hope that yet whispers through the darkness, through the brokenness, to our despair. The only One who can do something about it is very near and He longs to break in to our broken places to bring breakthrough. 

He is both Broken and Beloved. He is the one who says, “This is My body broken for you.” And He is the Beloved Son of God, with whom the Father is well pleased. His brokenness is our healing. His belovedness is our hope.