Forgiving is a difficult business. It’s easier to carry the flame of anger and harbor ill-gotten feelings, and then use that anger to utterly demolish the person/people who gravely wronged us and therefore we need to forgive. So understand here that I’m talking about people who you think have gravely and unjustly wronged you in a tangible, self-evident way and are coming back into your life apologetically requesting forgiveness. For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? – Matthew 9:5 Jesus gives us two choices we can make when confronting somebody who needs forgiveness: we can either let go and forgive – that is, not let the mistake bog down your (the victim’s) or the other person’s (the transgressor’s) consciences – or, you can work with that person and fix the root of the problem. In a sense, He places before us an impossible catch-22. Because we are Christian and therefore anointed by the power and spirit of God, we can radically alter lives through God, who guides our steps. At the same time, if we don’t want to invest so heavily in a project, isn’t it easier to let our pride go and forgive the actions of the person who wronged us? The answer is “yes.” In this story we know that the person Jesus forgives is a stranger to him, so there was no direct injustice inflicted upon Jesus by this man. But we have to realize is that Jesus is forgiving on behalf of God, the Father. He forgives sins (injustice against God) to free the conscience of this man. This simply means that forgiveness is not an absolution of guilt; rather, it is an acceptance despite of. To accept people despite of their mistakes is the ultimate form of forgiveness. Allow me to caveat this: forgiveness is not the same as allowing somebody who’s wronged you to continue to torment you so. Jesus doesn’t offer that type of forgiveness, so you shouldn’t feel that forgiveness is the same as allowing yourself to be victimized. Forgiveness is the act of letting go of the pain and anguish that was caused by an act of violence. It is in this same way that we are forgiven by God: He lets go of the pain and anguish we cause Him. We are all blessed to be accepted by God, given our innumerable inconsistencies and inadequacies: we all fall far short of perfection. God forgives us and loves us. And, just as our self-destructive behavior and inability to love ourselves perpetuates the need for our Creator’s forgiveness on a daily basis, we need to forgive and love the people around us who try really hard to hurt us with the shards of their own self-destruction and imperfections. In doing so, we are not absolving them from their shame, and we are not taking away the backlash and consequences of their sin; rather, we are validating that change awaits for them, that they can rise up above their circumstances, and that they will have somebody to walk with as they struggle through.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. – Matthew 6:21 We’ve all heard and read this before or at least a proverb similar to it. In fact, people probably have quoted this to us in order to warn us against chasing the wrong dreams. Whatever the case may be, this statement is true and absolutely weighty. We have to give it much consideration in light of living in a society where treasures are instantaneous and similarly where most people don’t know what they want because they don’t have a treasure their hearts desire for a long sustained period of time. Just look at the average length of time people are married and you’ll understand. Better yet, see how fast your kid gets disinterested in the new toy you bought him. If that’s not applicable, how about we recount the last boyfriend you had and the two weeks it took for you to kick him to the curb. Here’s what Jesus was saying, “we’re fickle people, STOP!” That was my interpretation. He points out to us in the verses immediately preceding this one we just read by saying, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19-20 ESV). He was talking about why we shouldn’t chase after temporary treasures that lose its glimmer and it’s sparkle. The “why” is simply because those treasures can be lost and when you lose them, you lose yourself in the process. Jesus instead advocates searching for a treasure in heaven. I don’t care if you think this is a metaphysical heaven, physical heaven or just an ideation of heaven. When things are set aside for heaven, one thing is certain– they are set aside for the perpetual eternity. As a result, Jesus says we must find our treasure in things that continue perpetually. So what are heavenly treasures? What are these “treasures” that cannot be stolen or rusted away? Are they not principles, ideals, and visions from God? Are they not the hopes, dreams and aspirations of a generously loving Father? Are they not the glory, wonder and awe produced through undying passion instilled in us through a Spiritual fire? If you want a treasure that never gets old and never dies, you need to move your heart toward Jesus. We get closer to Jesus by forgiving the trespasses of others; through simple prayers to God; and lastly by moving toward a place God is calling your name. Find your undying treasure today.

But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. – Psalm 13:5 The title of this post is, “Trust in STEADFAST Love.” The operative word is “steadfast,” which means “unwavering, unchanging, firm, fixed and established.” Therefore, the only love we should be trusting is in an unwavering, unchanging and established type of love. To trust anything short of a steadfast love is to set yourself up for failure and disappointment. Since we’ve established that, we have to expound on how we can discern a steadfast love; and, moreover, how we can find salvation through it. To set up this verse, I have to explain the inner turmoil the Psalmist is writing this in– he is depressed, lonely and in emotional pain! He writes in verse one that he has nobody else to confide in, he had nobody to lean on; so, he resorts to taking his meandering depression to his heart and smolders in it. He is so alone and in such a dark place that he can’t even imagine life. In fact, he asks God if he can just die because that would be the lesser evil. How many of us have been here? I’ve been there many times over; and, from the depths of my heart, I can tell you that death in those times does feel like a reassuring idea. Then you try to die because you lose the will to live and the irony is that you simply won’t die because you’re supernaturally sustained by amazing grace. You begin to curse God and then finally you see it– salvation, a new hope. When you are here in that place you need to trust in steadfast love. Instead what we do is trust in a lackadaisical type of love, a love that is unfounded in anything and ungrounded in power. The steadfast love is not either of those. The love that is steadfast does something. It moves things, places, people and circumstances. It is present when you need to grasp a hold of something, anything, so that you don’t fall into death. It is strong and doesn’t let go for any reason. This is the love we need to hold onto with trust. We trust it because the action of steadfast love is salvation. Today, I want you to know that there is somebody who offers a steadfast type of love. His love carried our mistakes, pain and agony on his shoulders. Jesus calls us all to trust in this type of steadfast love. But we should not only trust this steadfast love of Jesus, but extend it far and out: not only for our consumption, but also for the salvation of those with whom our love needs to be steadfast. Join me today and trust in God’s steadfast love through the action of Jesus, our Christ, and become an embodiment of His steady love: one who is trusted to be unwavering in people’s lives when all else fails.

Has there ever been a time when you partially followed an instruction because you felt that completely following through was detrimental to your well-being? For example, you were given a specific route or direction to go from point A to point B; but, you thought that the route given to you would waste gas and time, so you deviated and “made your own path,” as it were. We all know what’s like to follow the directions of a church deacon going to a retreat with crazy directions leading half-past a spotted black sheep and turning right only to turn left around a Dairy Queen somewhere in Pennsylvania. Yeah, we partially follow directions. We also follow this pattern with our parents and our doctors and our teachers, and the list goes on and on. We’ve established that we do this in one or more areas of life; but, what about in the area of God’s instructions to us? For the sake of practicality, let’s say that our conscience – the gut feeling that discerns between right and wrong, and yes and no – is a form of God’s instruction to us: do we follow these instructions completely, or just partially? The question is: do we only half-heartedly placate our conscience? And Samuel said, “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. – 1 Samuel 15:17 God wanted total obedience from Saul when it came to matters of war. Saul thought he had better ideas than God did, when it came down to it. So he only partially took God’s instruction and said, “Well, God told me He wants nothing, but I think He should get something anyways.” This led Samuel, the prophet, to say to King Saul, “Do you have trust problem? Or maybe it’s a self-esteem issue?” When we become “little in our own eyes” we tend to selfishly think and irrationally act. We get Napoleonic Complexes that create self-sabotaging circumstances in our lives. We begin to believe God doesn’t have our best interests in mind, so we take it upon ourselves to take care of “number one.” God has anointed us. Maybe not to the place of King, but to a place in society that is important. You may not feel as important as the President of the United States, but the lives you touch on a daily basis make you an essential being in your sphere. God has put you in a place where you can be comfortably and totally you. He elevates you into a place of influence around people, and, as such, demands your obedience to Him. Not because He needs you to do something for Him because He can’t; but, because anything short of obedience to God and the place in which He puts you, is an act of rejection. It is like saying that you don’t want good things from God. Don’t become little in your eyes by not following through on directions. You’re better than that. You were created for more than that. You’re bigger than that.

I hate interruptions. I especially hate interruptions that interrupt me when I’m pressed for time and on a hot trail to accomplish the task I have in hand; like when I am interrupted by silly tourists and their insatiable appetite toward finding the Statue of Liberty when you’re huffing and puffing to get to an event you’re probably, most indefinitely going to be late to now because of these lost tourists! Interruptions at times like these are as frustrating as commercial breaks during the last thirty seconds of a win or go home playoff football game. What can we do besides groan, sigh and deal with the unwanted nuisance of an interruption and keep it moving? We treat all interruptions to our life this way, don’t we? I guess sometimes we blow up at the interrupter in a curt tone while passive-aggressively lauding them for their impeccable timing. One thing is for sure, we don’t welcome the interruption, interrupter and the sublime details of the situation. But, what if I told you that sometimes God interrupts us for something better? How would we treat those interruptions? Better question, how could we identify God’s interruptions to our lives from the everyday ones that add nothing of value? Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him and said, “Has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over his people Israel? And you shall reign over the people of the Lord and you will save them from the hand of their surrounding enemies. And this shall be the sign to you that the Lord has anointed you to be prince over his heritage. – 1 Samuel 10:1 Saul, at this point in his life, was nothing more than an oversized pretty boy running errands for his dad. Despite the pettiness of his duties, he took very seriously the job he was given. He had to scour the territory and find three missing sheep. He searched long for the missing sheep to no avail. In the middle of his frantic search for the lost sheep, he was interrupted by a prophet! He was inconvenienced and told not to return home yet. Moreover, he was told to stop worrying about the missing sheep. How in the world can somebody, who interrupts what you were doing then tell you to stop worrying about what you deemed important enough to do? That is the position Saul is in when God, through the prophet Samuel, interrupts his life for the better. All of us need to pay attention to interruptions from God which intervene on our behalf and future destiny. Some interruptions are definitely distractions; but God’s interruptions come when we settled on mediocre and pursue it like the ultimate. Ask yourself, have you been pursuing something you are merely settling for? Then ask of the interruption, doesn’t this seem to be bigger than my capabilities? Haven’t God’s people been telling me that there is more that I could and should be doing? If the answer is “yes” to all of these questions, then the interruption presenting itself COULD be from God. There is one more criterion to know for sure: is there a clear and definite sign from God that this is His interruption? A clear sign, if you think that’s just a worthless abstraction, is ALWAYS finding the duties and pursuits you have been chasing coming to fruition without you. You know an interruption is from God when your current obligations and duties are not shirked by your interrupted circumstance. In fact, you know that an interruption is a distraction when whatever you were doing is still left undone. God wants to interrupt us for something better. He is the God of interruptions. He interrupted the course of human history and gave us salvation from the worthless life we were pursuing through Jesus. We weren’t going to find what we were looking for without being interrupted by Christ. Today we must embrace God’s interruption because He has set us aside for something else, something better. I pray that we are all interrupted by God frequently and powerfully. Perhaps this quiet time is the interruption you need for something better.

All my longings lie open before you, Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you. – Psalm 38:9Why do we sigh? Science tells us we sigh to “reset” ourselves. We sigh in anticipation of something: this something can be good or bad, but is usually bad. It is a physiological function allowing us to brace ourselves, and go into whatever we’re headed into with some type of boldness and freshness. Sighing is like groaning in the psychological sense. It is a nice way of groaning; but regardless, it carries the the same weight— sighing is the expression of our displeasure. I’m told I sigh a lot. In fact, I’m told my sighing is plain offensive. It’s my way of complaining. When somebody wants something from me, I sigh. The level of my sigh gives away the level of my displeasure without my having to express that displeasure. Sometimes, I sigh before phone calls because I need the deep breath to face the conversation that awaits. The funny thing is, I’d never noticed that anyone had noticed my sighing. But people definitely notice. Perhaps they do not notice all the time; but, they notice your heart pounding, your strength failing, and even the dark circles forming around your eyes as a result of your sighing. Whatever it is in our lives that cause us to sigh, we all have to agree that we long for God to do something about it. So we sigh louder and louder into the heavens and hope that God catches a glimpse, and wait impatiently for God to answer. We sigh again, this time against the anticipation of waiting for God’s response; and still, we have nothing. We try not to sigh before God, exasperated, thinking He sees it and experiences it but ignores our groaning and longing. All we want is for God to save us and all we feel is the feebleness in our knees, about to fall with pain pervading through our limping bodies and burned-out minds and broken hearts. We take one last deep sigh and say: “Lord, do not forsake me; do not be far from me, my God. Come quickly to help me, my Lord and my Savior.” (Psalm 38:21-22 NIV) The deep sigh is our prayer and our single greatest longing to God. Rest assured: at the end of that sigh, God is with you. He is your savior and whatever you are about enter into, you are now reset with Him and He will deliver you. Sigh deeply, and God will not be far from you.

When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. – Luke 24:30-31 If you want to see things, you have to open your eyes and keep them open. The reason we have a hard time believing in anything is because we want to keep our eyes closed to the possibility of anything other than what we see. If our eyes were opened and our perspectives changed, would we recognize something other than reality? If you want to live with excitement and adventure in your life, then you need to keep your eyes open. That is the only way you can recognize God, walking with you to take you beyond the road you are traveling.

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:28-30 ESV) This was it. It is finished. No more guilt. No more condemnation. No more sacrifice. You are free. You are welcome. You can be who God always intended you to be. Let’s reflect on that and consider the implications of “it” being finished once and for all.

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, implying there is no real beauty except for that which we, as individuals, claim as beauty within the imaginations of our hearts and minds. Therefore, any and every parent sees their children as most precious and beautiful despite how ugly, annoying and disappointing their children may actually be. Likewise, a spouse is always endeared to be beautiful to the one he or she is married. A tolerably subjective claim to satisfy the inner self. But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. – Mark 14:6 On this day, depending on who you ask, Jesus received something incredibly beautiful from somebody considered by society to be utterly repulsive; or he performed an undignified act of humility, beautifully catching the hearts of his followers. Certainly, if we love Jesus, his incredible act of sacrifice on a cross is beautiful without comparison in our hearts that can never be replaced or discounted. It is special, momentous and outrageously beautiful. But I want to follow the story of the woman who was found beautiful in the eyes of Jesus. Her actions begs us why we fail to do beautiful things for God. She scrapped to purchase an expensive perfume to pour out on sand crusted feet. She then continued to clean the dirt and other grime on Jesus’ feet with her hair. I know you would like to believe Jesus to be clean and immaculate because to imagine God any other way would be sacrilege, but Jesus was man and God here on Earth and so it meant he sweat, bled and got dirty feet after walking around in the Middle East. As a result, when a woman was taking her most prized possessions: perfume and hair, then uses it to clean the dirtiest part of the human body, the act is magnificently beautiful. Let me ask you a question: what is the most beautiful thing anybody has ever done for or to you? Do you remember the emotions you felt in receiving that beautiful thing? Do you remember the words you uttered in response? Take some time and think about it, why was it so beautiful? Do you remind them of the beauty? Let me ask you another question: What was the most beautiful thing you did or bestowed in another person? Who considered it beautiful? How did you feel at their response? What compelled you to do something worthy of being deemed beautiful? Have you done something like this often? Better yet, have you done something beautiful lately? Today I want to encourage all of you to do something beautiful for somebody. I want to challenge you to remind somebody of the beauty they bestowed upon you. As we close out Holy Week, take the time now to renew your hearts, minds and actions to be beautiful in the eyes of our beholder, Christ. We are wonderfully and beautifully made, let’s be wonderfully beautiful.

For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, how much more will what is permanent have glory? Since we have such a hope, we are very bold. – 2 Corinthians 3:11-12 (My translation) What if I told you that we are destined to walk with a glorious boldness? Would you believe me? Not only would you laugh at me, you’d probably call me a heretic. First, you would argue that none of us are capable of a type of boldness that can shine gloriously. Then you would argue that even if we could live with that type of glorious boldness, we wouldn’t be able to find that boldness within us. I mean, how can we develop a confidence to live our lives with such unhindered freedom given all the things that break us down and rip us apart? Our past confesses that living gloriously bold is nothing more than wishful impossibilities! Just think about the last time you thought you said something super insightful at a work meeting. You thought it was the most brilliant idea, so you share it boldly. You say it with such confidence that you begin thinking in your head that you will receive a nice bonus for saying what you just said. Then it strikes… ERROR. It was actually a dumb idea we imagined being boldly glorious and now we’re sitting through the remainder of a now, very uncomfortable meeting; red with embarrassment. Luckily for us, the prescripts of glorious boldness have nothing to do with our ability. Because if it did, we’d be better off living life with a paper bag over our heads. To live with glorious boldness is to unveil our hearts to God. To unveil our hearts is simply to turn our attention from the obsessions we have in our daily lives to obsessing over the search for our Savior God. The search for our Savior God is to accept Him for who He says He is in our lives. When we accept Him for who He is, we become transformed from the meek, weak, and anemic individuals we were nurtured to be through life’s circumstances and unleashed through Spiritual freedom to become what God’s nature dictates us to be. So allow me to reframe your perspective in life. If we treasure and find confidence in things that illuminate our lives but don’t transform it, then we will never be free from the depreciating nurture life bonds us with. What I am urging all of us to do is to let go of a false hope of glory which are tied to accomplishments, possessions and titles. We can boast most gloriously and boldly because of them; but only provide fleeting moments of empty pride. Our hope, the resurrection of Jesus, our Christ, gives us an unyielding confidence to live boldly as we were created to bring full glory to God. Just imagine where we would be if we would simply unveil our hearts to the possibilities of hope Jesus Christ offers. Find your glorious boldness in something everlasting and unchanging.