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This is cool. Is there anything else you could do something like this with?

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One of the special gifts God gives his children is hope.

Trials may batter us down like waves of the ocean but somehow we come bobbing back up, like human corks.  Though at times we may be cast down and discouraged, God gives us hope through his Word.  Sometimes God pours hope into our hearts without our asking.  But at other times we must fight for hope, like fish swimming against the current.

I fight for hope with these verses from Lamentations:

But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.  – Lamentations 3:21-23

Note the connection between actively calling certain truths to mind and gaining hope.  “But this I call to mind and THEREFORE I have hope.”

Hope arises in our hearts as we intentionally remember God’s character and promises. We must call God’s character and promises to mind, as did Jeremiah, who reminded himself of these truths:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. God’s love is steadfast: steady, faithful, unceasing.  His love is more constant than the seasons, more dependable than the sunrise.  Neither life, death, demons, disease, enemies, or our own personal failures can separate us from God’s love in Christ.

His mercies never come to an end. God has bags and bags of mercies stored up for us.  He’s an ocean of mercy with no shores.  In Christ we’ll continue receiving grace upon grace for all eternity.  It will take the coming ages for God to begin to show us his immeasurable kindness to us in Christ (Eph 2.7).

God’s mercies are new every morning. Each dawn, we awake to find the ground covered with the manna of fresh mercies.  God has new surprises for you today, grace you haven’t imagined - unexpected answers to prayer, wisdom for your children, provision for your table, solutions to thorny problems.  Fresh comfort and new strength is coming.

Great is God’s faithfulness. It reaches to the heavens.  He who sustains the galaxies will uphold our lives.  The One who provides for  lions and lacewings, sparrows and lilies, who waters the forests and feeds the teeming creatures of the oceans, will be faithful to those he purchased with his Son’s blood.  GREAT is his faithfulness.

Call these things to mind.  Grab your thoughts by the collar.  Remind yourself of Christ’s unceasing, steadfast love.  Recall throughout the day that his mercies will never end.  Thank him for his mercies that are new each morning.  Praise him for his great faithfulness.  Add faith to God’s promises and God will cause hope to begin to rise in your heart.

How about you?  Do you have a Scripture you regularly call to mind that brings hope to your heart?

photo by James Jordan

Confession: I’m not a big fan of other people’s problems. I’m a wicked sinner who’s got a pile of his own sin to deal with on a daily basis. When someone comes to me with a problem, whether it be physical, financial, relational, or spiritual, I’m not doing a jig of excitement.

Working through problems with others takes work. My lazy heart doesn’t like work. It takes work to sit down and have a long, painful conversation about a friend’s current struggle with lust. It takes effort to pick up the phone and call a friend at 10:00 PM when all I want to do is sleep. My mind sinfully begins firing off excuses.

• Look Stephen, these aren’t your problems. Let them deal with them.

• You’ve had a long day and you just need R&R, TLC, and ABOC (A Bag of Chips).

• Why do I always get sucked into these situations?

Can you relate to my sinful, selfish distaste for the problem of others? The truth is, I don’t want to get my hands messy. People (myself included) are messy things, and I don’t want to get my hands dirty messing with other people’s problems.

Yet when I read the example of the Apostle Paul I’m deeply challenged. Paul was a guy who, out of deep love for the saints, didn’t hesitate to get messy. The book of Philemon illustrates this wonderfully.

Here’s the deal. Philemon has a slave named Onesimus. Onesimus, not being a Christian, steals from Philemon and then proceeds to high-tail it out of town. While on the run Onesimus meets Paul, who in turn leads him to Jesus. After becoming a Christian Onesimus realizes that he needs to return to Philemon and right what has been wrong. All this equals a very messy situation between two messy sinners.

Enter Paul. He writes a letter to Philemon, pleading with him to be reconciled to Onesimus. He offers to pay any monetary debt owed by Onesimus. He even asks Philemon to prepare a room for him so that he can come and visit. Out of love for Onesimus and Philemon, Paul gets his hands very messy.

I want to be like Paul. I want to have such a love for my fellow Christians that I’m not afraid to get my hands messy.

What about you? Can you relate to my distaste for messy people problems? How do we grow in our love for the saints?

+photo © Jenny Rollo

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving…The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me (Psalm 50:14, 23)

Ever wonder why God commands us to worship him?

Is it because he’s some cosmic egomaniac who feeds off our admiration?  Does his love cup need constant replenishing? Does his self-esteem wane?  Or does he get some perverse pleasure from making his creatures do meaningless tasks?

Apparently Israel had fallen into thinking that God somehow needed the sacrifices he required of them.  They’d begun thinking like their pagan neighbors who believed their gods literally ate the animals sacrificed to them.  But in Psalm 50, God tells Israel he doesn’t need their offerings.

I will not accept a bull from your house
or goats from your folds.
For every beast of the forest is mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know all the birds of the hills,
and all that moves in the field is mine.

“If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world and its fullness are mine.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats? (9-13)

So why did God command them to offer animals to him?  They weren’t for God’s benefit, but for Israel’s.  He graciously gave them the sacrifices to temporarily cover their sins so they could draw near to him and enjoy a relationship with him.  The blood of the goats and bulls was to remind them that sin had to be paid for and to point to Christ’s permanent atoning blood sacrifice that was to come.

God doesn’t need our service or money or praise:

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.  (AC 17.24-25)

All God commands us is for our good and his glory.  He doesn’t need our serving or giving or worship, since he gives us life and breath and everything.  When he commands us to sing or pray or love our enemies, it’s for our benefit.  When God commands us to give our money, it’s not because he needs the cash, but that we might find him to be our treasure. And in being the source of all our good and blessing he is glorified.

photo by [auro]

Naps, along with fire, the wheel, and steak, are perhaps the greatest thing ever invented. Why? Because they are so refreshing. I just woke up from a nap and I feel like ten million bucks. Before the nap I felt like sludgy pudding. Now I feel like a superstar.

I recently read the following words in Philemon 4-7:

I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints, and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.

I absolutely love the words, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that was the regular effect that we had on others? Wouldn’t it be beautiful if after spending an hour with us, our husband/wife/child/friend said, “My heart feels refreshed in the Lord!”? We don’t live in a vacuum. Our actions and words directly effect the people around us. I want to be like Philemon. I want people to feel refreshed, rejuvenated, and refilled in the Lord after time with me.

What was it about Philemon that made him so refreshing to others? “For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love…” Philemon was bursting with love for other Christians, and the result was that he refreshed the saints around him.

Is my heart brimming with love for those around me? Do I have the affection of Christ for the saints, which in turn leads me to refresh them with my words, my time, my money, my care? I’m not there yet, but by grace, I want to be.

So here’s to refreshing souls. And to naps…

+photo by Dominic’s pics

Today at Covenant Life Church C.J. Mahaney gave an outstanding message entitled “Don’t Waste Your Sports”. If you enjoy playing, watching, or talking sports, you need to listen to this message.

Get it HERE.

This past Tuesday was my first day at the Sovereign Grace Ministries Pastor’s College. My good friend Bo Lotinsky, along with some other members of the staff, welcomed me to class by dragging my scooter (not moped!) from the parking lot and doing a little decorating. Needless to say, I got a good laugh, as did the rest of the class. Here’s some photos…

“If there is a dispute between men and they come into court and the judges decide between them, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty, then if the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence with a number of stripes in proportion to his offense. Forty stripes may be given him, but not more, lest, if one should go on to beat him with more stripes than these, your brother be degraded in your sight.” — Deuteronomy 25:1-3

How merciful God is in dealing with his people. A convicted man was to be whipped in the presence of the judge. But he was only to be given a number of strokes in proportion to his crime. The maximum he could receive was 40 stripes, so that he would not be degraded in the sight of his brother.

Some crimes might have deserved more than 40 strokes, but God in his kindness didn’t want to see anyone humiliated in front of his brothers.

But he did not show the same mercy toward his Son.

“Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified.” – MT 27:26

The ESV footnote for the word “scourged” says: “A Roman judicial penalty, consisting of a severe beating with a multi-lashed whip containing imbedded pieces of bone and metal.” These cruel whips would literally shred the skin of one’s back and sides.

God, who would spare a guilty man from excessive whipping so he wouldn’t be humiliated in front of his brother, did not spare Jesus from degradation. How dehumanizing it was when the Roman soldiers mercilessly whipped him, crowned him with thorns, draped a purple robe over his shoulders, placed a reed in his hands for a scepter, then bowed before him paying him mock homage. How degrading as they struck him and spit in his face. How degrading it was when they stripped him in front of everyone than crucified him like a criminal. How humiliating it was for Jesus to hang there gasping for air, while the crowd mocked and laughed at him in his suffering.

And Jesus endured the ultimate degradation of becoming so identified with our sin that his own Father turned away in disgust and loathing and poured out his wrath upon him.

He did all that for guilty sinners — those who truly deserved to be degraded. But when we call upon Jesus, instead of receiving the degradation we deserve, he clothes us with his righteousness and crowns us with glory. What kind of God do we serve?

May I be willing to be humiliated for Jesus. May I be willing to suffer, to be thought poorly of, or to be mocked for the one who was degraded for me.

Illustration: The Flagellation of Christ