That's the Point

This is what it's like
What it's like to be loved
This is what it's like
What it's like to be forgiven
This is what it feels like to be alive
To be living in a way
That you don't have to fear
Being zapped by God cause you don't measure up
After all...
That's the point.

Beautiful Feet

How beautiful upon the mountains
Are the feet of him who brings good news,
Who proclaims peace,
Who brings glad tidings of good things,
Who proclaims salvation,
Who says to Zion,
"Your God reigns!"
Isaiah 52:7

How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace
Who bring glad tidings of good things!
Rom 10:15

Who Is Against Being Loved Unconditionally?

WHO in this world would not want to experience unconditional love and total and complete acceptance of who they are, as they are?!

But yet why do so many people in this world still keep themselves at a distance from God? In some cases I guess it could be that pride keeps them from accepting unconditional love. But I think in many more cases it's because for some reason or another they simply don’t believe that God loves them unconditionally.

Why is that? I think one big reason is because the people who claim to know God have not represented Him and testified of Him – nor even really, truly believed in Him or known Him – as Agape Love. That is, as true, unconditional love. Love with no conditions? It's a nice “concept,” but do believers really believe it?!

Could it perhaps be said that Christian believers believe in the concept of unconditional love, but yet haven't fully and genuinely embraced it and put their full confidence in the truth of it? So with this anemic view of God's love, they go around representing the God that they actually believe in – the God of conditional love who doesn't fully accept people until they themselves somehow make themselves acceptable enough to Him. The conditional love that they show others is simply an expression of what they really believe about God.

To be clear, I'm not talking about the fact that in our human weakness we all fall short of expressing perfect love toward others. There's no human being who has ever loved me perfectly or unconditionally and I've certainly not always loved others as I would want to. But what I'm really getting at is that because Christians haven't really trusted in God's love as being unconditional, they've ended up treating others with a conditional kind of love (which isn't really love at all), and in the process have become far better known for being against the sins and lifestyles of others (at least the sins that are different from their own sins), rather than being known for having the beautiful feet of those who bring good news.

While Jesus, operating in God's unconditional love, was known for eating and drinking with sinners, and lifting them up and embracing them and drawing them into the world of the God's unconditional love, and saying that those people enter the Kingdom of God before others (...pause to reflect on that...!), Christians today are essentially known for looking down upon "sinners" and protesting the things they do, and shutting them out of the Kingdom of Heaven. They've put all kinds of conditions on God's unconditional love.

It's very easy see the outside of a person - the unfinished, unpolished version of the person that you are looking at. Therefore it's very easy to judge the person by what you see. But can you set aside what you see? Do you believe that the finished, perfected work of Jesus on the inside of a person is so much larger and effective than what you can see? Do you believe that God's love is unconditional? Do you believe that God loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life? Do you believe that God demonstrated His love in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us? Do you believe that Christ died for the ungodly? Do you believe that Jesus came into the world, not to condemn the world but to save the world? Do you believe that the gospel is good news?

Well then, shine up those good-news gospel-of-peace shoes of yours and put them on your beautiful feet and get out there and love people right where they are, just as they are! Accept them as they are. Embrace them as they are. Think about the conditions that you yourself may have put on God's unconditional love. Think about your focus on the shortcomings of others and your protesting of their lifestyles. Does any of it do anything to draw them any closer to God? Think about how the good news isn't for them when they change enough, but it's for them as they are. After all, it's for you, as you are, isn't it?! There is no other way for a person to receive unconditional love except as they are, without conditions!

Could it be that people are not against God and are not rejecting God, but rather are rejecting the distorted God that has been (mis)represented to them by those who call themselves His representatives - that is, the God of conditional love?  Who is against being loved unconditionally? So I say again, with your good news shoes on your beautiful feet, get out there and bring people glad tidings of good things. Give them a reason to believe in God's unconditional love. Give them some good news to believe for once!

Rev. Slick early morning "Urgent Message"

Oh brother. ;) Ol' Slick woke me up at 3am for this "urgent message"!

The Answer is Always B -1/15/11- Religious People or Little Children?

So, what did Jesus really say?

A) "Let the religious people come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God by their rigid religious performance will by no means enter it."

B) "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it."

C) "Children are funny!"

Colored People

We're colored people, and we live in a tainted place
We're colored people, and they call us the human race
We've got a history so full of mistakes
And we are colored people who depend on a Holy Grace

A piece of canvas is only the beginning
It takes on character with every loving stroke
This thing of beauty is the passion of an artist's heart
By God's design, we are a skin kaleidoscope

We gotta come together, aren't we all human after all?

No Excuse for Judging Others

So you think you've got one up on the people around you. You look around at the way that other people are living, compared to the way that you're living, and whether you verbalize it or not, and whether you intentionally keep it in the forefront of your mind or not, you live with the high and mighty assumption that your lifestyle is fit for the Kingdom and that the lifestyles of certain people around you are falling short. And so you look down on them and judge them.

You point out a few selected verses in Romans 1, which describe why the wrath of God had been "revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness," and you criticize those who you see as falling short according to those verses and you protest their behavior. You glance over the rest of the chapter but you keep coming back to the couple of sentences that make your case against those you keep criticizing.

You're so distracted by and focused upon the acts that other people in this world are committing, all because of the great partiality that you show in your hand-picked, limited selection of specific words out of an entire chapter (and beyond), that you've become blind to what the entire passage means both to you and to those you look down upon.

There are indeed many acts of "unrighteousness and ungodliness" listed in the last half of Romans 1. And with your self-righteous, holier-than-though attitude, you've failed to see that it's all traced back to the words "all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men."  You are included in that group just as much as anyone else. "For there is no difference," Paul would write just a couple of chapters later, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

That was the predicament, so to speak. That was the problem. The wrath of God was revealed from heaven against all the unrighteousness and ungodliness of men. No one was excluded, including you. You were condemned along with all the rest of mankind.  But even so, that wasn't Paul's overall point! His purpose here was neither to give us a list of things with which to judge others nor to leave any of us condemned.  He was setting up the good news of righteousness and justification that has nothing to do with our behavior!

Right after listing several examples of the acts of unrighteousness and ungodliness of men, Paul says something that is very profound and that is seemingly completely missed by those who focus only on the actions of others: "Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things."

Paul's list of various acts of unrighteousness wasn't a list for us to use to point fingers and to judge and condemn others, but rather to show how we are in no position to judge and condemn others! We may not all commit exactly the same acts of unrighteousness and ungodliness, but the point is that we were all in the same boat and that there is therefore no room for judging others.

So with all this said, Paul then delivers the good news. After showing how God's wrath had been revealed against all the unrighteousness and ungodliness of men, and how no one was excluded from that, and how there is therefore no room whatsoever for any man to judge another man, Paul gets to what he was leading up to all along.

But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus..." Rom 3:21-24

Paul's purpose in listing various unrighteous and ungodly acts was not to give people ammunition to judge and attack one another with, but rather to show self-righteous people that there is no room for judging. So hopefully, once you've realized that all of mankind was included in the reasons why the wrath of God was revealed and that God's very own righteousness, that came as a gift, was revealed as the solution to that problem, you will stop using Romans 1 in the way that it was never meant to be used - to condemn and judge and protest the behavior of others. Rather, you will hopefully use it to set up the good news of righteousness and justification by grace through faith, having nothing to do with your behavior or the behavior of others!

This Is Your Year to Prosper

This is your year to give without expecting anything in return.

This is your year to bless others when they curse you.

This is your year to forgive those who have wronged you, as God has forgiven you.

This is your year to be content with what you have because that is the beginning of true prosperity.

This is your year to stop the futile yearning for and pursuit of earthly riches that get moldy and dusty, that rust and burn and that moths eat and thieves break in to steal.

This is your year to see a Kingdom that is not of this world and that is not seen "without," but is within you.

This is your year to see that within the clay jar the true treasure is found, and that it is no small treasure. It is not something to be gained and it is not something to seek for over here or to find over there. It is in you.


Note that these are not steps to becoming rich. These are words that begin to show you how rich you already are! When you discover how rich and blessed you already are, your soul will truly prosper.

Is this your year to prosper?