Thoughts from the Street

Not my typical post, to be sure.

I am in New York City for a meeting tomorrow. After dinner with a colleague I had some documents to review, and with the nice seasonal weather, I opted to review them outside tonight. I’m a few blocks from Times Square, south towards the infamous Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. I am sitting on the sidewalk because there are no benches near here.

I’ve noticed a pattern in the people walking down the street. While I walked around the block (literally) I encountered several individuals sitting like I am, asking for spare change. I notice them. I am prone to, knowing my Father loves them as much as He loves me. Right now, I look the same to passers-by as those asking for change. So far, people walking by have done one of three things when passing:

– seen me from a distance of 25 feet, and then refused to acknowledge me when closer;
– acknowledged me, some pitiously; or
– crossed the street to avoid me entirely.

In fact, one guy started to cross the street, got halfway across, and diverted back to the other side after getting a look at me.

In short, these are calculated actions. Most of them are intentional and risk-averse. All of them reflect degrees of superiority.

What about you?

Why did I write this? I want you to take time today. To notice the people around you. Do you let people you don’t know, maybe people who are different, blend into the pavement? Whether they’re asking for your change, making your coffee, emptying your trash, they’re as valuable to God as you are. If you’re in a position your culture would say is superior to them, then our Father would say you’re in a position to elevate them.

I challenge you to take some time today to make them feel more human, more loved, more valuable. Let someone know today that God loves them. It is as easy as acknowledging them.

“…and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.” Matthew‬ ‭20‬:‭27‬ NIV

Hebrews 4:15 – The Culture For Forgiveness

This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. Hebrews‬ ‭4‬:‭15‬ NLT

I was super excited, to use the teen colloquialism, to get back to leading a MS guys small group last night. Trying to get a dozen 8th grade guys to understand what Jesus wants from us. “How do you sum it up?” I asked them. “Be perfect,” was the first response.

While that would be nice, because that would mean it is achievable for us, that’s not what Jesus expects from us. He experienced everything we do in this life, depending on where you live, in a drastically less forgiving culture.

The culture, though, was perfect for His message of forgiveness, of reconciliation. This is what makes Christ different than the other gods worshipped today: he lived this life so he could save us from ourselves.

We will be tested. We will fail. We will repeat the process daily until our flesh returns to the dust. Jesus is the only one who asks us to follow not His rules, but his footsteps.

Who are you following?

If you need a reminder of this question throughout your day, save this image for your phone’s lock screen. Remind yourself often to check who you’re following.

Image courtesy NECC MSM

Matthew 16:24 – This!

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me.” Matthew‬ ‭16‬:‭24‬ NLT

Several days ago, this tweet popped up in my feed:

Clearly, if you’ve read many of these posts, you can see I find personal meaning and learning I can share from many verses. I had to sort through my mind which verse has been most influential to me. After some discerning, I can say without a doubt, this verse wins.

This is the kingdom we’re called to bring to this world, the one in which we submit our lives as our King did to build his kingdom. While it is a kingdom of love, it is only built through sacrifice. Through daily submission. Through constant refinement.

I try to die daily. I strive to put my humanity and sinfulness into submission to God. I fail as often. I struggle, as Paul did, with one particular temptation I fear will haunt me all of my time here. But I don’t fear that these sins will keep me from God’s kingdom or that they will lead others away. Only because I die daily.

Matthew 20:28 – “Negative” People

“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matthew‬ ‭20‬:‭28‬ NLT

Pop quiz: what do you do with someone who is negative in your life?

I don’t mean a person specifically who causes you to sin, because we must remove temptation from our lives and sometimes that comes in human form. But what about people who are negative? Who you’ve allowed to influence you negative? Sorry the answer is sooo obvious from the verse today: serve them!

I see too many people asking God to remove “negative” people from their lives. If you’ve done this, and these people aren’t temptations to you, I hope you’ll see you’re doing it wrong. We’re not to “remove” negative people from our lives. We’re to pour our selves out to them as a sacrifice, to make them whole, to fill them with the love Christ has filled us with.

Next time you’re tempted (yes tempted) to think removing someone from your life, check to make sure it’s not just selfish sin guiding away from a life you’re perfectly positioned to change for God.

Mark 14:38 – Taxes and Death?

“Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Mark‬ ‭14‬:‭38‬ NLT

Death and Taxes. These are the two things around which you might be able to gather a global consensus. They happen.

Being the rabble rouser that He was, Jesus disagreed. Taxes, yes. Death? Optional. He didn’t promise us our bodies would live forever; they won’t. It will wear out because it’s weak, or it will get a Godly, sin-free makeover if you’re still using it when Jesus returns.

Since our bodies are weak, we must constantly work to yield the stronger portion we have, our souls, to God’s will. Our souls innately non a few things our physical shell tries to hide, thus there’s more to this life than this world chief among them.

Take time now to yield your soul for the day. Hit your knees and pray that God will strap you to your cross today, let you feel that burden as you move through the day.

It’s bound to be lighter than what you’re carrying into the day on your own.

John 8:32 – War and the World

“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John‬ ‭8‬:‭32‬ NLT

I was thinking about an important relationship yesterday while running, and I came back on a loop again, for the 100th time, and thought:

“I refuse to believe I have no way to influence this situation.”

Good sentiment, right? Persevere, keep working, etc. Then it hit me as only the weight of God’s presence can: also completely wrong, at least in this situation.

“You can try to win the war on your own in all these place, on all these battle fronts. Or you can give up. You can let go and let God.”

Taylor Starr – This Is War

As Taylor’s words rang in my head, I had to acknowledge another time where the world’s popular and seemingly right sentiment had taken me off the course of depending on God and probably through more struggles.

What about you? What have you been working on your own to do? What war are you fighting without God?

Stop it! Let go and let God! It takes more courage, strength, and faith to let God fight for you than to do it on your own. Don’t rob yourself of this opportunity to increase your dependence on God.

Matthew 7:27 – Stand

“When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.” Matthew 7:27 NLT

Image courtesy Curious on the Road

Jesus concludes His most direct, powerful sermon ever with these words. He’s just finishing explaining the difference of a house built on the rock and the house built on the sand. A house built on the rock, on Jesus, withstands the tests of this life primarily because it is not built on this life. A house built on this life is never built on one solid thing. It is built on a web of shift, changing, relatively valuable perceptions.

Fast forward a few millennia:

Today, technology has lowered the barrier for others to share their opinion about what we should be focusing on. It’s not just information overload; it is opinion overload”

Gregory McKeown, Essentialism

As much as everything seems to have changed, as much as the world seems to change everyday, nothing has about what Jesus said. As CNN proclaims that the Middle East burns, South America riots, and America is overwhelmed with immigrant/refugee children, we struggle individually and collectively with how to prioritize the ever shifting geography of our lives.

The storm will come, and if it has already rest assured it will come again. There is only one way to withstand the storms of this world. Build a life on that which does not pass away, lay bricks from and for a kingdom that will stand alone at the end of the age. That which is not built on time will withstand the test of time.

John 16:9 – Refuse to Refuse

The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in me. John 16:9 NLT

I don’t know what yesterday was like for you, or what today will bring, but this much is certain: it won’t be what God intended for us when He created everything. Sin permeates everything in this world, creating eventualities that are so far from what God intended it’s easy to imagine the world came to be without Him.

Since sin is separation from God, that’s the way it will always make things look. Whether the world around you or the life within you, sin is the catalyst that hides the truth from us.

The world will sin, and its sin will continue to hide the truth of God and his love. Find the cracks in the lie, the ones that may have been concealed in your life through years of sin’s scar tissue, and you will find truth and life.

Psalm Sunday: 82:3 – Defend

Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Psalm 82:3 NIV

God has made a clear declaration: I am your God and you are my people. Jesus, as He did with so many things, took God’s declaration deeper. God isn’t just your God, Jesus clarifies, He is your father.

God doesn’t want to simply rule over your life. If that was it, He would have made you to simply have your life ruled over. Instead, God chooses the route of love, the same route all parents ultimately realize they must take. God wants to influence your life so you will acknowledge that, whatever your circumstance today, you are not alone.

You may be weak, poor, and oppressed. You may be “fatherless” to the world, but your Father is always waiting for you to get home.

Lamentations 3:9 – Walls, Gates, Paths

He has blocked my way with a high stone wall; he has made my road crooked. Lamentations 3:9 NLT

I whine. Too much, given everything God has given me which I never deserved. Still, sometimes, I want to throw a little pity party and sit in the corner and read Lamentations to myself. Whenever I read through Lamentations, I’m reminded of how much more we’re privy to about God’s nature that Jesus revealed to us.

This verse is a sparkling example. In context, when God brought His people from Egypt, He cut a swath straight through a massive body of water rather than having the Israelites escape around it. Rather than seeing that as (only) a way for God to be glorified, it became the same kind of entitlement they felt as Abraham’s descendants that lead them to reject Jesus as their savior.

We know that a wide, straight path leads to destruction; that the path that ultimately leads us home will be narrow, difficult, and undoubtedly crooked. We know this lends itself to God being glorified in our taking it.

Image courtesy Abba Moses

Are you standing on an otherwise wide path, with a wall in front of you? If so, quit lamenting the wall (which is keeping something bad from you rather than you from something good) and start searching for the small gate to the winding, wondrous path toward home.