What if God Really Loved You? (Luke 15)

Do you believe that God loves you? Do you know and live like God loves you?

The words rang out through the room as I was sitting there.

In all honesty, I believed it. I knew it. I didn’t live like it, though.

Who does?

In talking with people and reading books, very few people live as if they believe and know God loves them. We read it in the Bible but do not live like those words are true.

In his book Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?, Philip Yancey shares this story: David Ford, a professor at Cambridge, asked a Catholic priest the most common problem he encountered in twenty years of hearing confession. With no hesitation the priest replied, “God.” Very few parishioners he meets in confession behave as if God is a God of love, forgiveness, gentleness, and compassion. They see God as someone to cower before, not as someone like Jesus, worthy of our trust. Ford comments, “This is perhaps the hardest truth of any to grasp. Do we wake up every morning amazed that we are loved by God?…Do we allow our day to be shaped by God’s desire to relate to us?”

The problem for many of us is that we read verses about God’s love for the world and us (John 3:16), that Jesus loves us (John 15:9), that God predestined us in love (Ephesians 1:4 – 5), that God sings over us (Zephaniah 3:17), that God loved us first (1 John 4:19), that God draws us to himself (John 6:44). We read Paul saying over 160 times that as a follower of Jesus, we are “in Christ”, and yet we live each and every day as if God is disappointed in us, indifferent towards us, mildly happy with us or just “likes” us.

We’ll say things like, “I know God has forgiven me, but I can’t forgive myself.” Or, “Yes, God loves me, but I can’t love myself.”

When we say those things, we have made love and forgiveness something it is not. We have based that on our own definitions and life.

Read those verses that are listed above. Put them on your phone, your computer wall paper, tape them to your mirror. When you pray, you are praying to a God that knows everything about you and still listens and still loves you.

This is a daily battle we fight to remind ourselves that God loves us.

What is amazing to me in those verses is that God’s love towards us all happened and was promised before we were born, before we were on the radar of our parents’ minds.

Still struggling to believe it?

Jesus tells an amazing story in Luke 15. We meet a family, a father and his two sons.

The younger son comes and asks his father for his inheritance. In this culture, the younger sons were often seen as the rebellious, carefree ones. The older sons were the responsible ones. The oldest son received 2/3 of what the father had when the father died. Notice, the father isn’t dead. The remaining children received what was left after that. This son says, “I want mine now, before you are dead.” He is telling his father, “I wish you were dead.”

The father at this point would’ve had every right to beat and disown the son in this culture. Instead, the father gives it to him, which means he would’ve had to sell land. In this culture that is focused on the father, the people hearing this story would’ve been blown away by the audacity of the son.

The younger son leaves, takes his money, lives it up and spends it all. Then a famine comes to the land he is in. He is at the bottom, so hungry that he is wanting to eat the food pigs are eating.

The younger brother says, “I don’t believe in God and will define right and wrong for myself.” In the younger brother, Jesus gives us a depiction of sin that anyone would recognize. The young man humiliates his family and lives a self-indulgent, self-centered life. He is totally out of control. He is alienated from the father, who represents God in the story. Anyone who lives like that would be cut off from God, as all the listeners to the parable would have agreed.

There is another kind of mess that Jesus doesn’t want us to miss, and that is the mess the older son is in. The Pharisees, the ones who are religious in this culture, are like the older brother. The older son said to the father, “I have never disobeyed you.” But he doesn’t want the father either. The older son thinks what will save him is his obedience, his morality, and his good deeds. The older son believed his father should bless him because of all that he did. For the older son, Jesus is a helper but he doesn’t need a Savior; he can save himself. The older son obeys God to get things. God owes you answered prayers because of how you live. Older sons may do good to others, but not out of delight in the deeds themselves or for the love of people or the pleasure of God. They are not really feeding the hungry and clothing the poor; they are feeding and clothing themselves. They serve on a serving team because that’s what you do, not because God has gifted them to do it.

Why is the older son angry at the father? The father has reinstated the younger brother. When the father says to the older son, “Everything I have is yours”, he isn’t lying. The oldest son gets 2/3 of the inheritance, and the other part was already given to the younger son. So, the father is spending the oldest son’s inheritance now on a son who is wasteful.

Both sons missed the father, and we often do the same.

This is often called the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The word prodigal means “reckless, extravagant, having spent everything.”

Jesus is trying to tell us this is what God our Father is like.

When the son returns and starts his speech, before he gets it out of his mouth, his father runs to him and throws his arms around him. In this culture, a father did not run. Certainly not to a son who rejected him like his did.

Not only does he welcome his son, but he throws a party. He gets a robe, the father’s robe. He reinstates the son.

Do you believe God loves you like that? That he would run to you and throw his arms around you?

Tim Keller said, “To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”

That is the love God has for us.

The question we wrestle with is, will I wake up tomorrow and live like my Father in heaven has extravagant and reckless love and affection for me?

God has not Forgotten You (Psalm 8)

Forgotten. Lost. Abandoned. Rejected. Left out. Passed over.

These words describe so many of the emotions that run through our lives. Parents who left us. A spouse who walked out on us. A parent who never said, “I love you.” A child who wants nothing to do with you. A boss who didn’t give you a promotion. A missed college opportunity. The feeling that you have no friends.

No matter how old we get, no matter how far we run or hide in relationships, we still find ourselves left out. At the very least, we find ourselves missing out.

These reasons and emotions draw us to pray. They pull us out of ourselves to seek God. This is one reason why the book of Psalms is so loved in people’s lives. It gives voice to the emotions we carry and the hurt we don’t know what to do with.

What has struck me so far in preaching through Psalms has been the number of psalms of lament, but also their placement with other psalms.

Psalms 3 – 7 and 9 – 13 are psalms of lament. Right in the middle is Psalm 8 where there is a celebration, as if a reminder that the sun does rise, the storm does end, the pain does not last forever. So in the midst of living in dark places and feeling alone, it does change. It is also a reminder for those who experience Psalm 8 and are celebrating and in the midst of joy that Psalm 9 is coming, and the sun will go down and life will happen in a way we did not expect or plan for.

What David does in Psalm 8 is important.

In verse 3 he recalls back to creation: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place.” He describes the intentionality of God’s creation, that it was not thrown together by his hands but done with the creativity and details of his fingers. He was involved and purposeful.

Then in verse 4 he lays out what is an incredible verse: “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”

Many of us feel forgotten, lost, left out and not cared for, not only by those around us, but by God.

Imagine right now that the God of the universe thinks of you and cares for you.

But what does that mean?

If you think of someone, if you are mindful of them, you are in a relationship with them. You know their celebrations and joys as well as their low points and pains. You remember the last good cry you had with them and the last time you laughed so hard it hurt. You know what they are dealing with, dreaming about and hoping for.

That is God’s relationship to you.

Not only that, he cares for you. He not only knows what you are walking through but cares what you are walking through.

Never again forgotten.

This is the foundation of the Christian life, that you are loved by God.

The foundation of following Jesus is not what you bring to Jesus, what you do for Jesus, how much you know about Jesus, how many Bible tests you can ace, how often you read your Bible, how much you pray or anything you do. Those are responses to God’s love.

The beginning steps of following Jesus are, “I am a beloved child of God.”

I am loved by God.

While many people say they believe this and will quote a verse or two, from my own personal life and being a pastor for almost two decades, few people live like this is a reality.

We spend so much time trying to earn God’s love and proving Jesus right for dying for us.

The only thing we did for that to happen was be broken and sinful.

What David does in this Psalm, though, is incredible. He tells us how we will remember this.

It is easy to forget that God thinks of you and cares for you. It is easy to think that God does those things because we do something or we are more spiritual or something else moves the needle on that.

David says when you and I look at creation, we will be reminded of God’s love, care and thought of us.

When you look at the mountains, the sun, the moon, the stars, you will be reminded. He takes everyday things, things we see on a daily basis, knowing that we need a daily reminder of God’s love for us.

The next time you watch a beautiful sunrise or sunset, that is a reminder of God’s love, care and thought of you.

The next time you see mountains covered in snow or rise above the clouds, that is a reminder of God’s love, care and thought of you.

The next time you see the trees change colors, that is a reminder of God’s love, care and thought of you.

The next time you put your feet in sand and let the ocean rush over them, that is a reminder of God’s love, care and thought of you.

Daily things.

Why?

We forget. We run. We hide. We keep God at arm’s length. We try to be impressive. We are so used to living forgotten, invisible lives that David wants us to know we are invisible no more. We are unloved no more. We are forgotten no more.

How to Handle Your Shame

shame

All of us to one degree or another carry around shame. Things we’ve done, things done to us. Things we’ve said, things said to us. Things we wished we had done, and things we wish that others had done. Shame shows up in all kinds of places and in all kinds of people.

What we often overlook is how much shame shapes our identity and our lives. It becomes a driving force in our lives, how we work and how we relate to others and God.

In Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God, John Piper says shame comes from three causes:

  1. Guilt. This is the one many of us know well. The addiction, the hidden sin, the abuse we don’t talk about, the affair, the divorce, the poor parenting, our failure at work and in life. We carry around guilt for ourselves and often without thinking, for others. When guilt becomes public knowledge, we have shame. Now we are known for what we have feared.
  2. Shortcomings. Shortcomings and failures are something all of us experience. Some of them are real and others imagined. Some are life shaping, and other shortcomings we simply shrug off. It is the ones that are life shaping that lead to shame. When our frame of mind says, “You are a failure, you aren’t good enough, you aren’t beautiful, strong enough or worthwhile”, we experience shame.
  3. Improprieties. These are the experiences in our life where we feel silly, look stupid or are embarrassed. We make a mistake, and it feels like everyone knows about it.

What do you do with your shame?

According to Romans 10:11, if you are a follower of Jesus, you will not be put to shame.

Yet shame is a driving factor in the lives of so many.

Here are six ways to move forward from your shame:

1. Name your shame. If you don’t name something, it takes ownership of you. This is a crucial step. You must name the hurt, the guilt, the shortcoming, the impropriety, the embarrassment, the abuse, the loss, the misstep, the sin. If you don’t, you stay stuck.

I’ve met countless people who couldn’t say the name of an ex, name the situation of hurt or talk about something. This doesn’t mean that you are a victim or wallow in your pain, but naming something is crucial. Without this first step, the others become difficult to impossible.

The saying, “Whatever we don’t own, owns us”, applies here. This is a crucial, crucial step.

2. Identify the emotions attached to it. Many times when we are hurt, we are an emotional wreck and can’t see a way forward. All we know is that we are hurt, that life isn’t as we’d hoped, but we aren’t sure what to do.

What emotions are attached to your shame? Is it guilt? Loss? Failure? Missed opportunity? Sadness? Hopelessness? Indifference?

Name them.

Name the emotion that goes with your abuse, abandonment, divorce, failed business, dropping out of school, not meeting your expectations or the expectations of someone else.

Often times we feel shame when we have a different emotion attached to it, but shame is far more familiar to us. Do you feel neglected or hurt or sad? What emotion is conjured up from a memory?

3. Confess the sins that are there. Do you always have sin when you feel shameful? No. Sometimes it is misplaced shame. It is shame you have no business owning. You didn’t sin; someone else sinned against you.

Sometimes, though, there is a sin on your part. You may have sinned, and that’s why you feel shame. Sometimes your sin might be holding on to that person or situation.

Sometimes you need to confess that your shame is keeping you from moving forward and keeping you stuck.

Bring those sins to light.

4. Grieve the loss. When we have shame, there is a loss. This loss might be a missed opportunity or missed happiness. It might be bigger than that and be a missed childhood, a loss of your 20’s, a loss of health or job opportunity.

It might be a relationship that will never be, something you can never go back to.

As you think about your shame, what did you lose? What did you miss out on? What did that situation prevent you from doing or experiencing? What hurt do you carry around? What will never be the same because of that situation?

5. Name what you want. This one is new for me, but it has to do with your desires.

Often the reason we stay stuck is because we know what stuck is. We don’t know what the future holds. Beyond that, we don’t know what we actually want.

We carry shame around from a relationship with a father who walked out. Do you want a relationship? Do you want to be in touch?

We carry shame from a failed business. Do you want to get back in the game?

Can you name, in the situation associated with your shame, what you want?

Sadly, many people cannot.

If you can’t name what you want, if you can’t identify a desire, you will struggle to move forward.

6. Identify what God wants you to know about Him. When we carry around shame, we carry around a lie. In identifying that lie, we are identifying the truth that God wants us to know about Him.

If you feel unloved, the truth that God wants you to know is that you are loved. If you feel unwanted, God wants you to know you are wanted. If you feel dirty, God wants you to know the truth that in Him you are clean.

All throughout scripture we are told that God is a Father, that He is as close to us as a mother nursing her child, that God is compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love, gracious, tender, strong and for us.

The list goes on and on.

In that list, though, is the truth, the antidote to your shame and what you need to remind yourself of to move forward and live into the freedom of Jesus.

Freedom is hard.

Let’s be honest, freedom is difficult. Living in sin, shame, guilt and regret is easy. It is what we know. It is where most people live and reside.

Freedom is scary. Freedom is unknown. Freedom leaves us vulnerable. Freedom leaves us not in control.

Yet, this is what it means to be a child of God. To live in freedom. Overflowing freedom.

Alan Mulally on “The Art of Working Together” from the Leadership Summit 2016

leadership

I’m at the leadership summit with the team from Revolution Church. This is by far the best leadership conference of the year. This is my 13th summit and every year, God stretches me and challenges me. So much wisdom and inspiration wrapped up into two days. I always blog my notes, so if you can’t attend or missed something, I’ve got you covered.

Session 2 was with Alan Mullaly where he talked about The Art of Working Together.

Here are some takeaways:

Working together principles and practices

  • People first.
  • Everyone is included.
  • Compelling vision, comprehensive strategy and relentless implementation.
  • Clear performance goals.
  • One plan.
  • Facts and data are important.
  • Everyone knows the plan, the status, and areas that need special attention.
  • Propose a plan, positive, “find-a-way” attitude.
  • Respect, listen, help and appreciate each other.
  • Emotional resilience – trust the process.
  • Have fun – enjoy the journey and each other.

14 Top Posts of 2014

book

In the month of December, I’ve been sharing my favorites of the year. You can read my favorite books of the year here.

Below are the 14 most read posts of 2014:

14. 10 Ways to Know if You’re Putting Your Kids Before Your Spouse

No one gets married thinking they will put their kids before their marriage, but over time without being intentional, it happens. It’s easy to do. Kids need our attention, they scream for it (literally). We also rationalize that it’s easier and the right thing to do. Or, we rationalize that we will have time for our spouse later in life, but later in life rarely comes.

13. Sometimes When People Leave Your Church, that is God protecting You

Whenever someone has left our church, no matter how much it hurt me personally, God has always shown himself faithful and allowed our church not to skip a beat. In fact, each time a volunteer or staff member has left, our church was stronger after they left and by God’s grace, we could take the next step.My point is, when people leave, sometimes it is for their good, your good and the good of the church because it is God protecting you.

12. 5 Things Productive People do in the Morning

Productivity is something everyone would like to raise in their life. To accomplish more is a goal most people have. Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of reading on time management, productivity, cutting things out of your life and how to step your game up. It seems like productive people accomplish more than everyone else and it isn’t because their life is easier or they have more hours in the day. They do specific things that everyone does not do.

11. Surviving a Hard Season in Your Marriage

If you are in a hard season that simply means you are married. Too many couples look at a hard season and want to throw in the towel, don’t. Your marriage means too much, the ripple affects to how your marriage goes are enormous. Don’t believe me? Talk to a friend who grew up in a broken home and ask them how that has impacted their life. Fight for your marriage.

10. 10 Books Every Christian Leader Should Read

I often get asked about leadership books that pastors should read. If you haven’t read these books, I highly recommend them. Let’s just say, these are 10 books every Christian leader should read.

9. The Pain of Breaking the 200 Barrier

Most churches in America never break through the 200 barrier, in fact, only 15% of churches break through it. Some pastors talk about it like it is the mythical unicorn. There are books, podcasts, webinars, and articles on how to break it. For years, Revolution would bump up against the 200 barrier and then go back down. We’d have seasons where we would stay above it and I thought we were through. Finally, we broke through it.

8. Dear Worship Leader

I love worship leaders. I love that at Revolution, almost half the service is music. I want you to be great. If you don’t serve with a pastor that wants you to be as great as possible, go find a new pastor to work with. The people who show up each week show up wanting to meet Jesus and you are a big part of that. You help us encounter Jesus in a personal, emotional and logical way. I want you to be great and I don’t want anything to stand in the way of you being the worship leader God called you to be.

7. How a Wife Flourishes

The idea of roles in marriage is filled with land mines. Many people have misused and misinterpreted the beautiful verses in the Bible to make them say what they want to. Few people have actually seen healthy couples live out roles well and often have incorrect views of Biblical roles. We have visions of quiet wives who say nothing, men who dominate and abuse their families all based on Ephesians 5, completely missing the point of this passage. In thinking about how a husband helps his wife flourish and become all that God has called her to be, here are 5 ways men often fail and how to work against these problems to create the picture described in Ephesians 5.

6. The One Thing Destroying Your Marriage That You Don’t Realize

On a regular basis I will hear from a parent, “My child is disrespectful to me or to my spouse and I don’t know what to do about it.” Or I’ll hear this from someone, “I can’t seem to connect with my spouse. We don’t connect sexually. We don’t connect emotionally or relationally.” What is going on? I’m about to pull my hair out. I don’t know what to do. Your kids reaction to you is a mirror of how they see you react to your spouse.

5. How Your Church can Reach Men

I was recently asked to join a team that helps to put events on for men in Arizona. I started to ask around about the organization because truth be told, I thought it was interesting since Revolution doesn’t have a men’s or women’s ministry. Essentially, we see our church as those. I asked someone who knew them well what he thought of this organization and he said, “Their meetings are a bunch of talk about ideas, what they’ll do but in the end, no action.” I looked at him and said, “So, like a men’s ministry.”

4. Vague Pastors

When you don’t preach on something, you are preaching on that thing. You are just saying what you think won’t be as controversial or the thing that won’t lose you your following.

3. 11 Ways to Know You’ve Settled for a Mediocre Marriage

It is so sad when I meet a couple that is unhappy. Whether it is stress, finances, kids, in-laws or sin, too many couples simply settle for a mediocre marriage. They carry around this look that says, “I’m not happy, but this is as good as it will get.” I’m sorry, but if I’m going to be in a relationship for the rest of my life, I want it to be better than a sigh followed by, “this is as good as it will get.”

2. Pastors Can Make the Worst Friends

For most pastors, church is something they are always thinking about. The next capital campaign, new ministry year, next sermon series, next issue, hiring a new person. It never stops. They spend all their time with people talking about church. They sit with their wife on date night and talk about church. It is not just a job, it is their life. It is who they are and this becomes unhealthy.

1. Thoughts from a White Dad of a Black Son on Ferguson

One of my sons is black. I will raise two kinds of boys to become men. Three of them white and they will see the world, be treated by the world and interact with the world one way. Then, another son who will see it differently, interact with it differently and be treated by it differently. Three of them will walk around with little fear of violence or being arrested. They will walk around as young adults and not fear police officers. One of my sons will.

[Image]

God Does not Withhold His Forgiveness

forgiveness

I’m reminded as my kids get older that parenting is about the moments we miss or don’t miss. Changes in our kids hearts, seeing the Holy Spirit work in them, helping them make right choices, helping them become who God has called them to be, it happens in moments, in conversations. While some of those might be planned and exactly as we see them working in our heads, by and large, they just happen.

I was reminded of this recently when our kids made some poor choices for some babysitters while Katie and I were out. As we talked with them and led them through a prayer of repentance, I was reminded that God already forgives us.

It was a great truth to remind my kids, God does not withhold his forgiveness from those who ask it. 

In the church, many say they believe this, but few actually do. We talk about grace and forgiveness with the culture around us, but don’t believe that God will really forgive them if they seek it. We also sometimes harbor bitterness at the idea that God would give forgiveness so freely to someone who would sin so willfully. Yet, we sin willfully. And God grants us forgiveness without reserve.

As we talked with our kids, Katie reminded them of 1 John 1:9 which says: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

This verse often gets talked about in terms of becoming a follower of Jesus, yet 1 John was written to Christians. Meaning, as a follower of Jesus, you will continue to sin and mess up. You will continue to get it wrong. Which means, you need to continually ask for forgiveness and confess your sins to God. But, that God is faithful and just and forgive us of our sins. I’m blown away that God’s justice in this verse is equated to he forgives us. Imagine that justice. It is forgiveness. Not wrath. Not anger. Not hatred. Not withholding love and his presence, but forgiveness is his justice for a follower of Jesus who confesses his sin.

And…

He will cleanse us of all unrighteousness. He will make us right. He will make us into the person He has called us to be. 

Enhanced by Zemanta

How we Miss the Point of Adversity & Pain

adversity

One of the mysteries in this life is how God turns our pain and adversity into joy.

Often, one of our struggles in pain and adversity is that we look for things that are not promised.

While God does give us answers as to why things happen the way they do, He doesn’t always. Not only doesn’t he always answer the “why is this happening” question, when he does, it is rarely on our timetable.

We aren’t promised answers. We are however promised that we can have joy (John 16:24), we can have wisdom (James 1:5), we can have God’s presence and peace (Philippians 4:7).

Here is our problem with that: we aren’t always content to have God’s joy, wisdom and peace. We want answers.

It is this desire for answers, this searching for answers (while not wrong) that causes us to miss the point of adversity and what God is doing in it, through it and seeking to accomplish.

In short, we ask and seek the wrong the things.