"Hallmark Holiness" and A "Greeting Card God".

The words of the song were common, I knew them. They flowed off my lips effortlessly. My clap was on rhythm and the volume was perfect, yet the atmosphere was dead. God was nowhere. I selected another album, a good one. In fact this was the latest and greatest, cutting edge worship chorus out. Again I sang the words boldly, mustering all the passion and concentration I could. I was saying beautiful things, I was speaking profound truths of God’s goodness and love, but I was not meant with His approval. The heavens were brass, and my christian “karaoke” was not penetrating the gap between my echo of worship and Jesus’ holy heart? 

All I knew to do was shut up. I stopped the song and stilled my heart and heard a statement that had been repeating in my head for weeks, but this time it exploded with meaning in my spirit.  “Am I a greeting card God, Do I desire “hallmark” holiness?”  “No sir, you are not, and no sir you do not” I whispered in response. My mind began to fill with moments where someone had given me a card with a message written by someone else. A message that was rubber stamp thousands of times, and addressed to thousands of others all across the world. At that moment a verse burned inside me. When you pray don’t use vain repetitions like the heathen do... (Matt 6:7 NKJV) Strong’s Concordance defines “vain repetitions” as “to repeat the same things over and over, to use many idle words, to babble, prate”. The words idle and prate stand out in this definition; idle meaning hollow, meaningless, pointless and lightweight; and prate meaning to talk foolishly or at tedious length about something. I then understood God’s sentiment He has no use for our tired, worn, redundant prayers and worship. Jesus would never treat us that way, in fact the bible says we are “to live by every word the proceeds from the mouth of God (Matt 4:4) Jesus is saying God is constantly speaking new living words to us.

I could do nothing but repent before a worthy God. I had given the popular christian pat prayers and regurgitated seance-style praise to Him, but He was not interested in the “broken record” of popular culture. God wanted the truth from my heart. Psalms 15 is David asking God, who are those who are near you, who are those who can dwell right next to you, and this is God’s response in verses 2-5.

Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right,

      speaking the truth from sincere hearts.

  Those who refuse to gossip

      or harm their neighbors

      or speak evil of their friends

    Those who despise flagrant sinners,

      and honor the faithful followers of the LORD,

      and keep their promises even when it hurts. 

Those who lend money without charging interest,

      and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent.

      Such people will stand firm forever.(NLT)

The NKJV ends this chapter of Psalms with “He who does these things shall never be moved.” 

Moved from where, verse one brings clarity ”Who may worship in your sanctuary, LORD? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? If we will follow God’s outline above we will never be moved from His presence and will retain the honor of truly worshiping Him. But if we do not speak the truth from sincere hearts then the flip side is true, we will be moved from the intimacy of His presence and forfeit the ability to give true worship to Him.

Think about it this way, it’s your birthday and your throwing a huge party inviting hundreds of friends. All the decorations are perfect, all the food is set and ready. The guests arrive and the party begins. The then time comes to open presents and your seated in front of the gift table, but to your dismay there are no gifts on it just a stack of identical envelops? You begin the process of opening and reading each one and are disappointed when the second card is the same as the first. You then let out a half chuckle as the third is the same as the other two. Card after card you go through hundreds of clones and the humor is completely lost after you discover all of the cards are copies of each other with just different names signed at the bottom. You think to yourself “Is this some kind of joke”? 

The next day you are shopping at the mall and happen to stumble into the card shop, right on the front end cap is the display for the same card you received hundreds of times the day before. Over the display is a sale sign that reads “overstock cards one penny”. You are mortified you know it’s the thought that counts, but now you question was any thought put into it, or were your friends just doing the bear minimum to gain attendance to your party?

Ecclesiastes 5:1 states “Walk prudently when you go to the house of God; and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil.(NKJV). What is the “sacrifice of fools” the NLT sheds light on this “As you enter the house of God, keep your ears open and your mouth shut. It is evil to make mindless offerings to God”. Is the gift we bring to the party, just mindless offerings of “overstock” religious rhetoric ? Is our holiness something that can be mass produced from a printing press? Have we even taken the time to ask what He might want from us, instead of force feeding God our prepackaged, microwave ready praise? Ecclesiastes 5:2 from the Message Bible perfectly illustrates this point “Don’t shoot off your mouth, or speak before you think. Don’t be too quick to tell God what you think he wants to hear. God’s in charge, not you—the less you speak, the better”. Other translations state “let your words be few”.

Our verbal diarrhea gets us nowhere with God, in fact it keeps us from residing in His secret place. “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart,Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the Lord, And righteousness from the God of his salvation” (Psalms 24:3-5). What God desires is honesty from the depths of who we are, and to let the truth of who He is spring up from our hearts into sincere songs of worship to Him. The Message translation states it this way “What you’re (God) after is truth from the inside out Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.” (Psalms 51:6 author’s parenthesis) Those who truly worship God will “worship Him in Spirit and in Truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship Him” (John 4:23) 

So what does God desire from us? Psalms 51:17 makes this clear The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,A broken and a contrite heart—These, O God, You will not despise. Psalms also goes on to say that “praise from the upright (synonym for honest) is beautiful”(Ps. 33:1), and “to worship God in the beauty of holiness”(Ps 29:2 and Ps. 96:9). God is waiting to open up the gift of true praise from honest and holy hearts before Him. This worship is done in harmony with His will, led by His direction and Spirit. 

Of all the greeting cards I have ever received the one that meant the most to me was a mess of construction and printer paper held together with elmer’s glue. It was scribbled with crayons and markers and covered in glitter and stickers. Written inside in sloppy pre-k script was “we love you Dad”. It was signed with finger paint and the P.S. was coded in a unknown toddler language, but it was beautiful to me. It was a one of a kind, creative masterpiece of love and thoughtfulness. It was made in honest effort to make Dad smile, and He did. If we will bring our patch work praise before him and break open our paper-mache hearts in true worship at His feet, we too will find our Father smiling and proud of His children’s pure, passionate love.

My Prayer

How can I minister to you, what can I say, what can I do, that would honor you. That would bring you praise…above just lip service and religious obligation. When I grow tired of the pursuit…let me find my rest in the pursuit. Allow me the grace to vacation from pressing forward toward your upward call, by pressing forward to your upward call. Let my weariness from worship produce passion to praise…When I have done everything to stand and can no longer stand…let me stand therefore. In my moments of weakness when I long to partake of pretense, please provide your presence. Turn my need for entertainment, into a need to entertain your company and enter in to your fellowship. If I burn out…I know your fire will burn on. When I withdraw from you…give me withdrawals for you. When my flesh looks for a door to escape, give me escape to adore you much more. Hide me in your secret place where complacency cannot find me. I know I can run and not grow weary, but teach me to walk and not faint. When I excuse myself from you, give me another excuse to draw near. Why would we long to leave the oasis for the desert, to leave the castle of the king to beg for scraps in the street. Torch the bridges that bring backsliding, and remove the nets that make the fall from grace so painless. I long to pay the toll on the highway of holiness, to buy a one way ticket to the high call. To make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts, If I look back I will find opportunity to return. If I leave a trail of bread crumbs I will find my way again to a life of crumbs. I never want to forget where you have brought me from, but I never want to remember the way back.






- John 3:30

A Successfull Failure

If you gain the whole world...every dollar, every possession, every ounce of power, and status. If strong men fear you and beautiful women desire you, and if you dominate all contests and win every competition most would say you have arrived.....hmmm.....arrived where?
You have achieved everything, more then mere men could ever dream, but yet death plays the role of the great equalizer. Money cannot bribe it, lust cannot manipulate it, and power cannot apply force to it. It is blind to rank or status, deaf to reason or argument, and mute in it's warnings. Everyone will travel it's journey, and eventually fall to it's gravity.
Our success seems trivial when filtered through this perspective. Our accomplishments appear fleeting when weighed In this scale. Death either robs life of it's meaning, or it provides life with it's meaning. If our lives don't matter in eternity, then I must ask the question, why do they matter at all?
I have spent the last two weeks staring into the hustle, investigating the bustle, and "in keeping up with the Jones' " I forgot to stop and ask where the Jones' were headed to? In running the "rat race" I forgot to ask what the winner got? And even more so why I'm content with the " consolation price". I'm realizing in winning I lose, and in success I fail. Because the sad thing about a finish line is....your finished.
The treasures and trophies we've amassed in the meantime offer no ransom against the end. Our very pride and joy, the apples of our eyes, leave us stranded and naked in death's embrace. In being betrayed by our belongings, who do we " belong" to? In this moment our things...won't mean a thing, because our possessions possessed us, and empty handed we successfully fail. We fail to achieve the only accolade that eternity awards....to be known by the master of all. We made it our aim, to hit the mark of human perfection, but fall short of being pleasing to Him.
We fail in expecting our temporary prestige to be valued in forevers permanent perfection. We played the game of life with monopoly money, and scratch our heads when our "hard hearts" aren't considered "legal tender" in the final accounting. In being consumed with this current world we buried the divine currency entrusted to us, and all our potential is charged to us as debt. All of our earthly accomplishments only add to the kindling fueling the final fire. Our everything evaporates into nothing, exposing our emptiness. If all our worth dwindles into worthlessness what is left to define ourselves by? Our finite fades to infinite inadequacy separating us from freedom forever.
We succeed at our own failure, because we failed to secede from momentary meaning into timeless truth. We neglected to secure salvation over status, and fortune over faith. The vapor of existence is dissipating, and time itself is running out of time. At the edge of eternity we must decide where our riches will reside buried in a broken world or invested in "unbroken" fellowship with God Almighty.


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Gavels Down

I've constructed a world where everything fits nicely into carefully compartmentalized criticisms. I know what's wrong with you sometimes before I even know your name. I see your faults before I see your pain, and I draw conclusions with a permanent marker, while writing the hope of Christ in disappearing ink.
But, the sad truth is I'm right....my impressions usually are as bad as they appear, and my track record for spotting sin is flawless. I've got a knack for identifying evil, and a reputation for recognizing rebellion. In the past I have taken great pride in my ability to sift through the sands of someones sorrow just to find the skeletons hanging in their closet. Like a skilled archeologist I follow the trail of past mistakes, I sweep away the sentimental sediment that "covers up" our situations; just so I can find the lifeless bones that lay buried underneath surface-level semblance. But for all that archeology has ever taught us about who we are...it has never unearthed who we could be. For all the death that is has discovered it has never produced a single life....nor does it care to. It is not concerned with life outside of exposing the dry bones of yesterday.
I am that archeologist, digging up dirt on all that I encounter. I am that juryman handing down verdict, and that judge wielding a gavel with the precision of a master marksman. In all my cases closed....have I ever left a heart opened. Has anyone found life in my delivering of "life" sentences. In being correct in my stereotypes has any change come to the corrupt? Even in calling sin what it is, it still IS.
So I say gavels down, and crosses up. Just like a physician cannot treat a disease he has not diagnosed....he also fails if he diagnoses a disease he refuses to treat. In my youth G.I. Joe taught me that "knowing is half the battle", but I missed that acting on that knowledge was the other. Because to see sin just takes eyes, but to "see to" someones freedom takes heart. Describing the dead is for coroners, describing the life is for Christians. Pronouncing death is not our calling, but speaking resurrection is....gavels down....gavels down.


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Junior Strength Jesus

Allergies, migraines, back pain, sleeplessness, cough, cold, day, night....there's a pill for that. Whatever ails you we have found a remedy for, just be sure to pay close attention to the label. Because, we have extra-strength, daily dose, maximum relief, 8 hour, 12 hour, and 24 hour varieties. We even have the diluted, dulled down children's strength brand medicine.


I recently was walking through the pharmacy and actually stopped to pay close attention to the tons of options available for any ailment imaginable, and I could not help draw parallels to the way we come to God.


We like our Jesus "specially formulated" to whatever needs we believe are most important at that moment. We require our God to be "rapid release" in His response, and require the remedy to be free of any "side effects" of sacrifice or obedience. We prefer the Jehovah PM that allows us to be drowsy in out diligence and prevents us from "operating heavy ministry" while taking. We encapsulate His message into easy to shallow lukewarm "liqui-gels" and give the bitter truth a bubble gum flavor. The sad reality is our treatments have been successful. We have quieted the ringing of conviction in our ears, we have handled the headache of holiness, and have eliminated the "back pain" from carrying that pesky cross.


We have medicated the masses with a "generic" God, and have forgotten the "name brand" by which all men must be saved. We have placed our faith in "over the counter" orthodoxy but neglected to put our sin under the cross. Our youth suffer the most from the pretense of our pious pill popping, Because we worry that the "placebo presence" we have in our churches right now might be to "strong" for our kids. So we secure our truth with child-proof caps, and put it high on a shelf for when there "of age". Then we divvy out the "junior strength Jesus" that promises no over- dose.


The only problem with this is that evil doesn't come in children-strength, and the symptoms of sin aren't stopped with an insignificant "infant drops" intimacy with God. But there is a prescription capable of truly providing healing. There is a treatment of truth that goes right to the source of our pain...to "deliver" fast effective relief"....right where we need it most. It is the uncomprimised word of God, and the perfect person of Jesus Christ..." the anytime, empowering, saving, restoring, providing redeemer, so you can lived blessed medicine!!!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Un-organized Religion

Un-organized Religion


History is littered with those attempting to harness God, to leash His omni-presence, and build boundaries around His boundless person. This "God is my co-pilot" mentality seeks to put the driven divinity in the passenger seat of man's bandwagon. We fence in the Almighty six days a week, until on Sunday we turn our religious levers and ask our God-in-a-box to pop out and perform for us. Like a master puppeteer with hands of hype we pull man's heart strings, but our theatrics leave us tangled, and our knock-off leaves us in knots. I've come to realize that the problem with the man behind the curtain....is at the end of the day it's only a man behind the curtain. Our smoke and mirrors only serve to leave us coughing and confused. We have replaced the righteous lit city on a hill, with fog machines, projector scenes, and laser shows; because we have to. We have to take everyones attention off the fact that God is not in our sanctuaries. We don't want to admit that our hearts resemble more the dry-ice in our props, then the all consuming fire of Jesus' presence. It all boils down to control...we want it...God has it, but faking it is cheaper then paying the price to experience it.


Rules, regulations, and liturgy bring shallow comfort in there predictability. It's much easier to write a bulletin around man-made ministry, then God breathed spontaneity. Don't get me wrong I'm not against having a plan....I plan to fall on my face and tarry in the upper room of intimacy with the Most High till His Spirit baptizes me in power to turn this world upside down. This type of fanatic mentality creates real issues though, it makes it difficult to beat the "lunch rush" to the local all you can eat fare. I weep over the appetites that truly get our praise, when were willing to watch and wait for our table buzzer to go off longer then on our knees in reverence to Him.


Religion is neat, and simple. It offers structure, and solace. It allows for wiggle room from the rigid requirement of organic obedience, replacing pursuing His presence with perfecting our processes. If practice made perfect, then our redundant repetition would have brought righteousness, but instead it brought bondage. We learned how to make faith a formula, and in doing so we have cured ourselves of the undistinguished disease of desperation. We have made for ourselves broken cisterns unable to hold water, we are clouds without rain, advertising what we do not have the ability to offer. Churches have taken out bank loans, and exhausted themselves with telethon like building plans in painstaking effort to achieve the fulfillment of scripture, we have worked hard to gain a form of godliness, but I fear we are working even harder to deny the power thereof.


God is calling us to un-organized religion. To wild worship, and unchained companionship with Him. It's a fact that God moves when we move out of the way. We only have to over-compensate in our services because we have under-estimated Him in our service. When our agendas and itineraries fall to His will and tempo; our pyro-technics will not compare to the brilliance of the glory He will pour our upon us. He is offering His liberty and living words in exchange for our piety and dead works. His redemption in exchange for our regulations, and His glorious intimacy traded for our legalistic liturgy. We can continue to speak only about what He has done, or we can be a part of what He is doing. We can only learn about miracles long past, or learn first hand of the miracles he longs to pass through us. We can only worship He who was....or we can gaze upon and worship who He is, and in doing so experience the worship of Him that is to come.

To Love is To Hate...

I love my favorite football team, I love a really good steak, I love a well crafted novel…In fact there are hundreds, maybe thousands of things that I “love”. It is probably the most played-out word in my vocabulary. It hit me the hardest after seven years of marriage when the mantra of “I love you, baby” started falling on deaf ears. It had been said and heard so much that her ears were numbed to its meaning. Maybe she wondered “does he love me like he loved that New York Strip we had at dinner, or maybe he loves me like he loves the “total stranger” quarterback on his favorite team.”

                  Then the real weight hit me when I was talking to God one afternoon. It was sweet moment of fellowship with Him when I whispered “I love you Lord”. The next thought in my head was “do I love Jesus like I love sleeping in on Saturday mornings?” Do I love Him like I love beating the high score on a Nintendo game?”  Do I love Him like I love a free upgrade to first class on a long flight, or like I love the sound a golf ball makes when you hit it just right?  Disgusted by the shallowness of my affection, I asked God “What does it mean to love you?”  I heard this so clearly in my heart, “TO LOVE ME IS TO HATE WHAT IS NOT ME.”

                  As a society we love sitcoms, hobbies, food, clothes; almost anything can be labeled by love. So it is easy to tell God we “love him.” Just like it’s easy to tell the barista at Starbucks that we would love a low-fat caramel macchiato.  We’ve so abused that word that it virtually means nothing. So when God commands us to love the Lord with all our hearts, minds, souls, and bodies; we say no problem. But there is a real problem, because in turn we must also hate anything that is not of Him with our whole heart, soul, mind, and body.

                 

                  Hate is not a word that gets thrown around as much. It is not as distorted in its meaning as love is. So it paints a truer picture in our hearts of where we stand. Do you hate Greed? Do you despise disobedience? Do you loath lust? It’s not so easy to answer those questions as haphazardly. Would you rather die than gossip about your neighbor’s short comings? Would you rather pluck out your own eyes then imagine what’s under that mini-skirt? Would you rather amputate your hand then raise it in anger to your spouse or kids?  Now, ask yourself honestly do we really love Him?

                  Here’s the answer….Your love for Him can be measured by the same degree that you hate sin!

                  Would you rather never speak another word; then tell a joke you know He disapproves of?  Would you rather be “entertained” or enter in to His Glorious Presence? Would you gladly embrace the pain of telling the truth or escape into the ease of a lie?  Is being right more important to you then being righteous? Would you rather have Him, or your next fix?

                  I know it’s a lot of questions but I want you to think about all of these.

                  Can you recite this sports season statistics, but not the secrets in His scripture?  Do you spend more time in the mirror putting on make up, then in His word putting on the armor of God? Do you really hate the very secular song that is stuck in your head right now?

                  So Do we really Love Him???

Personally I would have to answer that, not as much as I thought I did.

                  Now the last question is. Do you really WANT to love Him?

                  If your answer is yes, Jesus died to give you that privilege. Just stop playing games and tell Him the truth. You are where you are. Only He can change that, but only you can let Him. Religion has taught us to stop being honest with ourselves and to put on a mask. But you can’t see God’s face till you take the mask off yours. In living the religious life we have robbed ourselves of true transformation.  This is how it is supposed to work. This is the way God intended our journey towards Him to progress. We draw near to God and He draws near to us. When we draw near to Jesus, He reveals our sin to us; we repent, or let me use a better word we CHANGE (only by His Grace). Then we take another step into the depths of His splendor, and He reveals even more of our sin to us. So we CHANGE again and again and again. This is the process from Glory to Glory to Glory. So don’t be discouraged by the things that have separated you from true intimacy with Him. Just repent, receive His empowerment and CHANGE. That is how you will come to truly love Him and to hate what He hates. We get there by confessing we’re not there yet, and then submitting to His leading and following Him to our destiny in His arms.