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.

Prodigal James

If I just showed up at your party

Would you have me? Would you want me?

Would you tell me to go straight to hell

Or lead me to the garden?

~ Taylor Swift, Betty

Tonight I was thinking about these lyrics, because we, like James in this song, have done stupid things and require forgiveness and quite frankly deserve to be told to go straight to hell. But it made me specifically think of the prodigal son in Luke 15, and the difference between James's Betty and our God that we need forgiveness from is that God doesn't wait for us to show up at His party; instead even while we are a long way off, He runs out to us to embrace us, forgive us and bring us home. 

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him."

And then God throws a cracker party, where the answers are yes: Yes, He would have me; Yes, He would want me. He leads us into His garden of promises where we are absolutely wanted and loved and held forever! 

So as I listen to Betty, I find myself grateful once again that Jesus shows up so that we can party with Him. 

Stupid Games, Stupid Prizes

 You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes

~ Taylor Swift, Miss Americana and The Heartbreak Prince

What games am I playing? What prizes am I spending my life trying to win? These are the questions that always pop into my mind when I hear this song. 

I want to be playing for a prize that really matters, for a prize that lasts, to look back at the end and know I have achieved something of meaning. I certainly don't want to pour out my life in the pursuit of something that doesn't even matter. I don't want to play stupid games to win stupid prizes. 

It also makes me think of the times of playing Candy Crush when I start a level without taking in what the goal is, and then I get caught up clearing out the chocolate or collecting the pieces that seem the most obvious, only to get to the end of my moves and realise I completely missed the mark in what I needed to do. 

I don't want that to be true of my life. When my moves are up at the end of my days, I don't want to have just done my own thing, thinking I know best, and completely miss the true goal of my life. So I need to pause often and remember what the goal and the prize set before me is: 

Philippians 3:12-14 "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

James 1:12 "Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him."

The upward call of God in Christ Jesus is the goal I am striving for, the game I am called to play; and the crown of life, which God has promised to me, is the prize I am living for. 

Everlasting

You know the greatest loves of all time are over now.

~ Taylor Swift, The 1

T Sweezy was onto something with these lyrics. Because no matter how epic the love story, there will always eventually come a point where either death or distance or disagreement do them part. 

Except (thank the Lord!) God's love is different. Death, distance, disagreement, demons, depth, despair can't touch it. 

Romans 8:38-39 "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Jeremiah 31:3 "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you."

The good news of the Gospel is that there is no expiry date on God's love for us. There is no end to His love, because God is love and from everlasting to everlasting He is. God's love for us is everlasting and His faithfulness continues always. 

So, Taylor, my humble request to update that line: 

The Greatest Love of all time is everlasting and you can know it right now.