2008 Grace Roots Blog Highlights

I first did this last year, and decided to do it again this year. According to Google Analytics, these are the top posts on this blog for 2008. I've also been saving my favorite blog post of YOURS during the past year, and I'll post those as well.

As I said last year, "I generally don't pay a whole lot of attention to the stats, but one of the things that interests me is finding out which articles are getting the most views. The Google stats are not scientific, and they don't include the stats for articles that are read via feedreaders, email subscriptions, etc, but they give me a general sense about how the things that are on my heart relate to those who read what I write."

Three or four articles that had post dates prior to 2008 appeared on the list, and I've left them out of this list.

Most viewed Grace Roots articles for 2008

1. The Full Armor of God (1/12/08)
2. Interesting "Shack" discussion (6/21/08)
3. Does God inhabit our praises? (Or do we have it even better!) (3/8/08)
4. Sanctification is the living out of a love affair (12/14/08)
5. Who we are in Christ (3/31/08)
6. Fake it till you make it? (repost) (12/7/08)
7. "Permisson to be Human" - Darin Hufford (5/8/08) (Darin's name appears often in the
8. The Heart and The Scriptures (7/27/08) (It was through this post that I got to know author Jim Robbins)
9. "Love" in 1 Corinthians 13 (Part 1) (7/22/08) (I never did post Part 2!)
10. I don't 'really care' about my bad reputation... (7/6/08)

Publish Post

I have truly enjoyed getting to know all of you through the world of blogging! Thanks so much for taking time to read and/or interact here! And for those of you who have your own blogs, thanks so much for sharing what's on your hearts! Happy blogging in '09!

ALL Your Sin Taken Away Through ONE Sacrifice

Latest Growing in Grace program is up. One sacrifice for sin... once and for all. This week Mike and Joel take a look at the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus. Is there anything we need to do when we sin to make up for our sin, or to atone for it or cover it? Is there anything we can do? Is something else needed? How many of our sins were taken away through the blood of Jesus? ALL of them! It was a one-time sacrifice. Is there anything we can add to that!? And what about Jesus? If His one time sacrifice wasn't enough for each and every sin, wouldn't He have to keep on coming back over and over again? The good news can't be repeated enough: ONE sacrifice took away all your sin!

gigcast.graceroots.org

I'm BAA-AACK!!

Not that anyone knew I was gone! LOL. My family traveled to stay with my parents during the past few days and we got home about four or five hours ago. We came home to a nice 2 - 3 inch layer of snow to blow (on top of a nice, slick sheet of pure ice) with my Spirit snowblower! Yay, just what I wanted to do today!

Anyway, it was great to see my parents. My dad had a stroke in October, and is recovering well. My dad 'retired' as a full time pastor over a decade ago, but that didn't mean for an instant that he stopped doing what he does! He became the "part-time" pastor of a small country church, and has been doing that for the past ten years. As the people down there always tell me, he's not a "part time" pastor for the church. He's always doing what he does, being who he is, and I suspect he never ever had any sort of "time card." :) Anyway... my mom had previously told me that my dad planned on 'retiring' from this church next spring, but with the stroke and all, he decided to do it at the end of this year, which is, of course, upon us.

The sad thing is that he wasn't able to take the service on Christmas Day, so my mom (also a retired pastor) took it for him, and he was also not able to do his final service this morning (which we weren't able to be there for), so my mom also did that. Everyone understood, of course.

Now... if we'd have known what the weather was going to do, we'd have stayed there one more day and would have been there for the final service! We started out yesterday in very pleasant 70º weather (just southwest of St. Louis). We headed up north about half an hour, and the skies were looking VERY dark. It became very, very windy and a bit rainy. I decided to go back to the town we'd just gone through and wait things out. Turns out a tornado hit just a few miles away! Well, after a bit, we got going again and mostly ran into rain, but the winds had died down, thankfully. Onward to Iowa, and we began seeing all the snow we had left behind a few days before.

The temperature had been dropping all throughout our trip. Rain was still coming down lightly, and as we got just south of Iowa City (75 miles from home), the temp was 32º (0ºC - freezing), and we had heard that there would be light, icy rain. It was indeed light, but it was enough to cause some HUGE problems! We were driving along as normal, but then suddenly I felt as if our van had just slid a little to the side. I let off the gas, and slowed down, and I noticed us sliding a tiny bit more. Very quickly, the other vehicles around us slowed down. All within 30 seconds, we dropped from a comfortable 70 mph to a very scary 30 - 40 mph. Then, even at that speed, we were sliding, so I had to drop down to 20 - 30 mph --- on the interstate!

Such a short distance to get home - but yet so FAR with all this ice. Suddenly we saw a pickup on the other side of the interstate go off into the median and almost onto our side. We then knew this weather was NOT for us to be driving in! We passed one exit to Iowa City, but then on the next one I pulled off, very slowly. It then took us almost 15 minutes to drive three miles to the nearest motel! Cars were sliding all over the place, even in town.

But... we arrived at a motel, and we were safe for the night. And... they had Douwe Egberts DELICIOUS coffee out in the lobby! Mmmmm... and Ahhhhh... The evening also turned out to be such a fun time for the kids! After we got settled, we slid (walked) over to a nearby restaurant, Old Chicago, and the food was absolutely splendiferous! I had a nice, relaxing beer before the meal came (they only had 110 to choose from), and we played along with a trivia game that was on some of the TV screens. Just down the street from us, the Iowa Hawkeye basketball team was beginning a home game, and so we watched that on TV at the restaurant. It was my little girl, Noelle's eighth birthday and she said it was her best birthday ever! They brought her a Little Big Cookie and some ice cream for dessert, and we all shared that.

Then, back to the motel for some more fun, just kickin' back and watching TV, etc, watching the weather reports. Yeah, back to the weather. It was absolutely terrible out. Lots of accidents and vehicles in ditches. When we checked out this morning and got back on the highway, there were still lots and lots of cars in the ditches from last night. I'd estimate that in the 75 miles we drove, we saw at least 30 vehicles in the ditches. We saw one semi that had slid into a very shallow ditch and we saw a U-Haul-type truck (at least 26') on its side in the median. On a couple of the deeper ditches, that go waaaay down there, we saw some cars as well. THAT would've been scary! I'm so glad we just decided to stay in Iowa City for the night. I was supposed to work today, and my wife Tracey was supposed to work at church (which is why we planned on coming home yesterday), but we called and got substitutes.

Anyway... I'm glad to have been able to spend some time with my parents during Christmas, and I'm glad to be home safe and sound! There are 139 unread blog posts in my feedreader. I'll get caught up soon... NOT! I'm just gonna clear 'em and start fresh! Hope y'all don't mind! Happy belated Christmas to all!

Bob and Doug - Twelve Days of Christmas

SCTV's very own Bob and Doug McKenzie from the Great White North singing their own version of The Twelve Days of Christmas! This song has cracked me up for years.

Three videos here. The first two appear to be videos created by fans. The third one is my favorite... a new (as far as I know) animation of Bob and Doug doing the song!

1) Short Version (song only)


2) Long Version (song and additional dialog)


3) Animated Version. Actually, I decided not to directly embed it here. This animated version is excellent, but it's followed by a trailer for "the newly animated Bob and Doug show" that contains some somewhat crude parts. Just as "law" always does, I know that makes you want to see it all the more... LOL... but I'll leave it up to you to decide if it's for you or not. (I thoroughly enjoyed the song part, but quickly stopped watching after the trailer started).

It's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together

NOT!


Yep, that's a MINUS sign before the 11 - the actual temp at 9am this morning! Wind chills reached 30 to 40 below...

Feelings of Guilt and Condemnation are Not from God

Latest Growing in Grace program is ready for downloading/listening. A continuation of the chat from last week. If you're feeling guilty and condemned for your sins, it's not from God! In Christ He has taken away your sin completely - which removes all guilt and condemnation. "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (see Romans 8:1). The law made people guilty before God (Romans 3:19), but those in Christ "have been set free from sin" (Romans 6:22) and have been "made free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2). The only thing that has made this possible is the Blood of Jesus. We can't add anything to what Christ has already done! His sacrifice was a one time sacrifice, sufficient for all of our sins - past, present and future!

gigcast.graceroots.org

Where the blog...

So where the blog have I been lately!!! I'm used to posting pretty frequently but lately my posts have been 'few and far between' --- whatever that means!

Well, for one I spent this morning digging out of the nine inches of snow we got overnight! And I'll tell you the truth... I LOVE it! I really do - I'm not kidding, exaggerating or trying to act 'nice' about it. I really love the snow! There's just something about getting my Spirit snow blower out and just plowing through the stuff! And as for my job - driving - I'm not exactly a "daredevil," but I generally love driving through the stuff as well! There have been times when I'd rather be off the road, but overall I dig it.

I've been busy with a few other things as well, but I guess the main reason I'm posting this particular blog is to point to a couple of other blog posts that have had some really good conversations going on in the comments section (see links below). There have been some agreements and some disagreements... and that's all great! I don't mind disagreements, especially when people can talk things out without getting upset and angry, and I think that's what's been going on in these two posts.

Here are the links to the two posts that I'm talking about. If you're interested, please take some time to read through the comments. There are so many good things said by various people!

Fake it till you make it (51 comments so far)
Sanctification is the living out of a love affair (also 51 comments as of the time of this post)

Today's cancellations

Due to the looming snow storm, here's a sample of some of today's cancellations.

Darn! I was really wanting to learn how to shoplift!!! (Click image for better view).

Mark Lowry Did You Know...

...that the first two letters of your first name and last two letters of your last name spell Mary?

And Mark Lowry did you know when you wrote the lyrics to Mary Did You Know, that 243,000,000 other artists and their mothers would someday sing this song, overwhelming the radio airwaves with the song for six to eight straight weeks every Christmas season??? ;)

Here's Mark singing the song, preceded by him talking about the writing of the lyrics in 1984 and the adding of the music a few years later by Buddy Greene. (Starts around 4:06)

Sanctification is the living out of a love affair

Isn't it?

No More Guilt and Condemnation

Latest Growing in Grace program is ready for downloading/listening. Jesus came to take away our sin, leaving us without guilt and without condemnation. If you're experiencing fear (being afraid) of God, or if you're experiencing guilt or condemnation in your Christian life, be assured - that's not from God! This week we talk about all of this, and about how we need to "rightly divide" the word of truth, not mixing together the Old Covenant and the New Covenant and calling it all "Christianity." Jesus said to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. Just a little bit of legalism can mess up the whole batch of dough! Take a few minutes with us and be encouraged as you grow in grace!

gigcast.graceroots.org

You're My Best Friend

The other day a friend sent me a message on Facebook, asking about my wife Tracey, wondering if she had her own Facebook. This friend said she'd like to say 'Hi' to Tracey (essentially meaning, communicate with her via the internet). Well, Tracey doesn't have a Facebook account. No Myspace. No blog. No Yahoo Messenger. Not much of an online presence at all! In fact, she rarely spends any time at all on the computer. It's just who she is! Tracey is absolutely unlike me in so many ways!

But we've discovered along the way that it's not being alike that makes our marriage. In fact, what makes us friends is not that we have so many things in common. We often joke about all our differences. She loves leopard prints and colorful clothes. I love jeans and a single-colored t-shirt. She loves arts and crafts --- and she's great at sharing her talents with the kids. I can perhaps draw three circles and hope that someone sees it's a snowman. She listens to modern praise and worship and I listen to classic rock. We both love 80's pop though! She's neapolitan and mint chocolate chip and I'm plain vanilla, all day, every day, in every way.

The point is... well, I have no real point that I'm trying to make! I just wanted to say that you don't hear anything from Tracey on this blog, and the biggest reason for that is because this just isn't her thing. But yet, despite all the ways in which we're different, Tracey is my best friend. She does a great job raising her "four" kids. One is 10, one is almost 8 (two weeks from today), one is almost 40 and the last one is named Puppa. She is a hard worker. She is the most faithful, dependable person I've ever known.

This isn't to celebrate an anniversary, a birthday or anything of the sort. This is just because! "I'm happy at home... You're my best friend."

Queen - You're My Best Friend

Fake it till you make it? (repost)

I think this goes along somewhat with my last post, Love is Supernatural.

Have you ever heard (or used) the phrase, "fake it till you make it," in regards to the living out of the Christian life? Although I've heard the actual phrase used only a handful of times, I've seen the Christian lifestyle that's represented by the phrase in action all throughout my Christian life. And it's sad, because it's nothing less than a fleshly attempt at living the Christian life.

One of the times I heard the phrase used in a sermon, the pastor was talking about the various family qualities and values that we are to live out as Christians. Loving our spouses, loving our kids, "one anothering" each another, and so on. When we find ourselves falling short in our love relationships with each other, what should we do? According to this pastor, we just "fake it till we make it." :( I was very disheartened to hear that. If we're having a hard time loving and showing appreciation to our spouse, for example, we just fake it till we make it. We go through the motions until we find ourselves genuinely loving our spouse.

I'm sorry, but this totally misses the point of Christianity! It sure may appear right to some, since it's an appeal to us to do good things. But all it really is is a fleshly attempt to do these things. The flesh, no matter how good and wonderful it appears, will never, ever, EVER produce what the Spirit can and does produce in us!

Another time I heard the phrase was in a small group setting. We were talking about the gifts of the Spirit, and "how" to walk in them. (shudder) One man suggested the "fake it till you make it" method. ((double-shudder)) For example, if it's the gift of tongues that's in question, just start muttering some words and eventually it will come. Or whatever the gift, just go through the motions enough, and eventually it will become real.

I'm all for "growing" in our gifts, and in the living out of the Christian life. But not through FAKING it! See, there is absolutely nothing fake about love. If we feel we have to fake love in order to grow in love, then we'll never come to a true living out of a love-life.

I can see why the "fake it till you make it" mentality is so prevalent in the church today (even if the phrase itself isn't used a whole lot). The focus in the church today is behavior modification. Sermons, seminars, meetings, exhortations, articles, radio and TV programs, and so on and so on... all focus on getting us to change our behavior from one way ("bad") to another way ("good"). Do I want to stop doing bad and start doing good? Of course! But you can teach me all you want about what is bad behavior and what is good behavior (what I should stop doing and what I should start doing), and yet you will give me no power whatsoever to change my behavior!

Christ in us - and His grace - is the power to live a godly life. There is nothing fake about Christ in us! But when the constant focus is behavior modification, people will take their eyes off of the One who IS the way, the truth and the life and will always be attempting to change themselves. This constant focus on behavior modification, leaves people with, well, a constant focus on behavior modification! They are deceived into thinking that by focusing on good behavior they're focusing on Christ. But since they're not really looking to Christ and His life that miraculously and abundantly indwells us, but rather are focusing on change, then all that's really left is a life of faking it till they make it.

Growing in true love and true godly behavior doesn't come from attempting or faking love or godly behavior. True love and true godly behavior comes over a period of time as we look to Christ, who is in us, to live His life in us, and it comes as we grow in God's unconditional love.

Doing Doesn't Make Us Who We Are - It Flows From Who We Are

Latest Growing in Grace program is ready for downloading/listening. The good works we do - the "doing" of the Christian life - are not done to score points with God or to maintain our good standing with God. Our good works don't make us who we are (and they don't disqualify us from who we are). Rather, in Christ we are a new creation - righteous and holy - and as we become more and more established in this truth, our "doing" becomes the natural outflow of who we are.

gigcast.graceroots.org

Love is supernatural

My post the other day, We All Wanna Be Loved, was inspired by several thoughts that I've had over the past few weeks and months, as well as by the conversation that happened on Day 5 of the week that Steve McVey was a guest on the Canadian program It's A New Day (a couple of weeks ago). I enjoyed every program that week, and if you haven't checked it out I highly encourage it! If nothing else, do take some time to check out the link and take in all the wisdom, vulnerability, brokenness and love shared on Day 5.


Jesus was put down, criticized, persecuted and hated for eating and drinking with tax collectors, prostitutes and all kinds of other "sinners." He loved the unlovable. He spent time - eating and drinking - with "bad" people. He had loving, close, friendly fellowship with them. He wasn't afraid of being contaminated by them! He didn't care what people said about Him. I believe He was compelled by LOVE to love them, touch them, heal them, accept them, befriend them, share wisdom with them, sit with them, hug them, talk with them, listen to them, give to them, mourn with them, defend them, take their burdens, take their guilt, take their shame.

He was so unlike the religious people of the day. The religious people were there to make sure the people stayed in line. They wouldn't dare be seen with the "sinners," but they sure laid down the rules for the sinners. They put heavy burdens on people. They condemned people. They pointed fingers and pronounced people guilty. They even added their own rules and laws and stipulations onto God's laws. You know what? It's EASY to do all of that! It's easy to talk about how bad other people are and how good you are. It's easy to protest the sins of others and even pass laws against their sinful behavior. (Your own sins, of course, don't need laws... right?)

What's hard, though, is loving others unconditionally! In fact, "hard" is too soft a word. Loving people unconditionally is impossible. The commands to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as you love yourself, are impossible commands to obey. I've heard people quote these commands quite nonchalantly, as if true love for God and others is so simple. To love as Jesus loved - and really He was showing the love of the Father - is something that can't be done through trying to obey commands.

Love - that is, agape love - is supernatural. It's not of this world. It's not of the flesh. It's of the Spirit. No law or rule can cause love. No set of disciplines or principles produces love. The kind of love that loves unconditionally doesn't come from obedience to a command. It comes from the very love and life of Christ in us. Love cannot be faked. If you have to "fake it till you make it," it's not love.

To love others like Christ loves others is a supernatural act of God that wells up from inside a weak clay jar and overflows miraculously into the lives of others and back to God. To be vulnerable, and to be real and authentic is the same. As I look at the list of various people on my We All Wanna Be Loved post, I see that I've carried some fleshly fears, prejudices, pride and self-righteousness - and quite simply, a lack of true love - into the way I view others. I can't deny any of it... but I also can't fake any of it away! In order for me to love others as God loves them - without conditions - it can be nothing less than a supernatural, miraculous work of Christ in me. And it can't be rushed, so I rest peacefully in Him knowing His love is working a perfect work and bears its fruit in due time.

The invisible man ;)

Ok, so smarty pants Leonard posted A day in Joels life, showing a print screen of my Yahoo status as "Idle." Well, the reason I was idle on Yahoo was because, well, you know I was busy running around somewhere doing the Lord's work, being about my Father's business, of course!

So anyway, Leonard always tells me I shouldn't give him ammo... but yet HE keeps giving ME ammo! The image below is the same print screen he posted, only with an additional highlight... ;)


For a better view click the picture.

We All Wanna Be Loved

From the sinner to the righteous to the self-righteous to the rich to the poor to the brother to the sister to the mom to the dad to the husband to the wife to the son to the daughter to the aunt to the uncle to the grandma to the grandpa to the cousin to the niece to the nephew to the in-law to the out-law to the trustful to the distrustful to the law-abider to the Christ-abider to the holier-than-thou to the holy-by-grace to the one who sings in tune to the one who sings out of tune...

From the hard worker to the lazy to the homosexual to the heterosexual to the eunuch to the black to the white to the red to the yellow to the green to the purple to the tidy to the unkempt to the introverted to the extroverted to the happy self-satisfied sinner to the miserable self-condemning saint to the wasteful to the prudent to the glass-half-empty person to the glass-half-full person to the danger-seeker to the scaredy-cat to the Jew to the Gentile to the religious to the non-religious...

From the judge to the jury to the prosecutor to the defender to the witness to the prisoner to the free to the royalty to the peasant to the upper class to the middle class to the lower class to the forgiving to the vengeful to the content to the envious to the fit to the unfit to the fleshly to the Spirit-led to the home owner to the home renter to the homeless to the citizen to the alien to the knowledgeable to the unintelligent from the famous to the unknown to the social person to the anti-social person...

From the murderer to the life-saver to the neighbor to the friend to the stranger to the selfish to the selfless to the one with much company to the lonely to the atheist to the theist to the one who is like you to the one who isn't like you to the one who likes you to the one who doesn't like you to the one who thinks I just repeated myself to the one who sees that I didn't to the addicts to the self-controlled to the flashy to the plain vanilla to the clumsy to the coordinated to the self-conscious to the others-conscious to the God-conscious...

From the one who spits on the name of Jesus to the one who esteems His name as the name above all names...

From the this to the that to the everyone else...

We all have one thing in common...

We All Wanna Be Loved!

Believe the truth

Just over a week ago in my post called There's no 'Space In Between Us' I talked about how there is a deficient "gospel" out there, which is really no gospel at all, in which people feel as if there is some space or distance between them and God. They feel as if they've perhaps not performed well enough, or they've sinned too much, or for whatever reason they feel that there is some gulf that needs to be bridged between them and God - when in reality God has brought us near to Himself by the blood of Jesus, as an act of His loving-kindness and grace. It's not up to us to make ourselves 'right' with Him. He's done it all.

I've had various thoughts about all this since I posted that, but one thing has remained prevalent in my mind. It's simply this: If you don't feel close to God, or if you think that there is some gap or distance between you and God, your thoughts and feelings are betraying the truth. What we need is not to rely upon our thoughts and emotions when they don't line up with the truth, but rather what we need is to believe the truth. God's not withholding Himself from you. Didn't He say, "I will never leave you nor forsake you?" But it gets even better than Him simply not leaving or forsaking us. It's much more deep and personal than Him simply being there and not going away. The Bible says that He has become our very Life, joined together with us, interactive with us, faithful to the end. Even if we don't feel it, or our emotions tell us differently, the truth remains true!

Look for the good news

As you know, the word "gospel" means "good news." The New Covenant is part of the good news. Christ in us is part of the good news. Eternal life is part of the good news. Sufficient grace is part of the good news. God working in and through us is part of the good news. Forgiveness of sin - in fact, sin taken away, is part of the good news. Love, joy, peace... and so on... is part of the good news.

There is so much BAD NEWS today. I'm not talking about the news that you see or hear on the TV or radio. I'm talking about stuff that comes from the pulpit! Sure, there's some grace taught, but it's all nullified with talk of shame, condemnation, guilt, etc. My purpose here isn't to put anyone down, but rather to point out that there is so much junk out there that has the potential to keep us from renewing our minds daily in the good news of Christ!

And so as I think about this, my encouragement is to focus on the good news! When you read your Bible, intentionally look for the good news. When you listen to people teaching or preaching, focus on the good news. It seems that for a long time I skipped past verses that say that I'm the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus and that I'm holy and accepted in the Beloved, because for various reasons I thought those things couldn't possibly be true of me, because my life didn't seem to show it very well!

But a closer look at all of it shows that it's ALL the work of God in me. It's not anything I've achieved, but it's what He has done on my behalf. It's His GIFT - and it's GOOD NEWS! So when you read your Bible and you come across something that seems too good to be true, don't pass it up. It IS true! It's good news! It's the Gospel!

Mark Lowry - The Old Sanctuary

Classic stuff. :)

Plankeye

And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother's eye. Luke 6:41-42

As I've grown in grace, I've come to perceive more clearly that the planks in my own eyes are overcome and removed by nothing less than the sufficient grace and love of God working in and through me by the Life of Jesus. As I experience this more and more, I truly do see more clearly how the whole speck-removal thing works in the lives of others.

(BTW, "Plankeye" is the name of a Christian band... I like it so thought I'd use it as the title of this post). =)