The Unfairness of the Gospel

"Today you will be with me in paradise is what Jesus whispers to every dying saint." ~ a quote a read years ago in some devotional

Jesus' undeserved death was exchanged for undeserved life for me.

"God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God." ~ 2 Cor. 5:21

The Gospel is beautifully unfair.

The criminal who was hanging on the cross next to Jesus understood fairness. "We are punished justly for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man [Jesus] has done nothing wrong. Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom." ~ Luke 23:43

The moment he understood his wrong, his sin, and the punishment of death he deserved for it, that was the moment that Jesus extended the most unfair invitation. He invited a man who was about to encounter hell and life apart from God, into paradise and life with him.

"Jesus answered him, 'I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." What a beautifully unfair exchange.

The moment we realize that our sin deserves the punishment of death and life apart from God is the moment we can receive this most unfair invitation. The gift of paradise in living life with God and life in Christ. Unmerited, undeserved, unfair grace.

I think true paradise is knowing Christ intimately. I think we know him intimately through suffering and dying to self. When we go through suffering we get to know him in his suffering for us. When we die to ourselves and give ourselves away we are getting a taste of what Jesus did for us. The thing about dying to self is that it's essentially for others. It's serving others, giving to others, sacrificing for others, loving others, showing Christ to others.

So in essence we get to participate in the beautiful unfairness of the Gospel. When I die to myself it has the potential to give life to someone else.

"For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal bodies. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you." 2 Cor. 4:11-12

What happened on the cross is bigger and deeper and more amazing than we can ever fathom. That Jesus got what we deserved and we get what he deserved. He took the punishment for everything we did wrong so that we get the reward for everything he did right. 

This unfair grace, this unfair exchange, this unfair paradise with him. The word "thankful" doesn't even do my gratitude justice. I'm beyond thankful for the unfairness of the Gospel.

The Most Important Person

(This picture is of this passage in English, Spanish, and Arabic. It gives such eternal perspective!)

"After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried:

"Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the Lamb." Revelation 7:9-10

Can you imagine that multitude of millions praising and worshipping God? This image of everyone in all the world, in all of the history of time, dressed in white, declaring God's salvation is breath-taking. Jesus at the center of it all.

Jesus is the most important person. The most powerful person. The most beautiful person. The richest person. The most royal person. The greatest person. The most famous person. The most important person in all of the world, in all of history, in all the universe.

And one day every creature and human being will realize it and praise, worship and bow down before him. We will realize it was never about us. It was always all about him. We will be in the multitude and he will be in the center, the focal point, he will be on the throne.

And yet it is just absolutely mind-blowing that this most important person in the world wants me, loves me, sits with me every morning, wants to be with me, went to the extremes for me... died for me.

He has everything, he knows everything, he sees everything, he created everything and he wants my heart, my love, my worship. And I have his love, his grace, a relationship with him. I get him, I get to have him, to know him, to find comfort in him, to spend time with him. I get him today and for eternity. That just makes everything else so... trivial and temporary.

It's truly thrilling that this person, this God in all his glory and kingdom and beauty and light and royalty says to us, "Hang out with me today, sit with me, let me speak to you and love you today."

One day I will stand in that multitude and be in awe that I have a history, a past, a relationship, a life spent with the one who is at the center of it all, the one who we all are praising and worshipping.

This God who is the treasure treasures me.
This God who it's all about is all about me.

If that doesn't give you the deepest confidence and absolute security in who you are...
Nothing else, no one else will ever be able to give you that the way Jesus can. That makes me want to worship him, praise him, and make my life all about him.

What gratitude, what an honor that we are most important to the most important Person.

The Beauty of Christian Community

When something becomes familiar it can be easy to take for granted. When something becomes familiar it can seem to lose it's beauty.

I remember the day I moved to Memphis, it was on my 25th birthday. I wanted so badly to connect with others in Christ and to find true Christian community. I couldn't find it. It was so easy to find in college but once I was out of college it felt so hard to find. But out of that burden and desire the Young Adult Community at Hope Church was birthed. 

So I've been doing this job for 4 years now. And community has become familiar to me. The thing I used to long for, I can easily take for granted now.

But this week God has given me a new found appreciation for community. I have been able to step back and re-see, re-find and re-appreciate the value and beauty of Christian community.

Everyone wants to connect. Everyone wants to be known. Everyone wants to feel like they belong to something. That is the common denominator of everyone who walks through our doors. Everyone is in a different place spiritually and might be looking for different things in a church. But the desire to connect with others is the same.

When new people walk through those doors each week I just can't help but think about the potential that is before them to meet people and build relationships and friendships that may grow their faith and challenge them to a deeper desire to know Christ. I see potential for them to follow Jesus in new ways and to be used for his kingdom. I see potential for changed lives that will change lives. I see new opportunities to obey Jesus' greatest command: to love God and love others. I see opportunities to follow Jesus' last command: to go into all the world and make disciples. When people walk in the doors and encounter Jesus (through others, through worship, through teaching), I feel like I get to see God's kingdom come on earth.

I love getting to be a part of something like that. I LOVE connecting people to people and people to Christ. 

Over the past 4 years I've gotten to watch countless friendships and groups of friends develop. I've gotten to watch small groups form that study and grow in God's Word together. And I've gotten to see God bring relationships together where people are pushing each other towards Christ, learning to forgive, learning to love selflessly and learning to look past themselves. Some of those relationships will last the rest of their lives.

Maybe the beauty of what can happen in Christian community is that we get to taste what Jesus had in mind for us when he said, "I have come that they may have life and have it to the full." John 10:10

Maybe the beauty of what can happen in Christian community is that we get to be a part of the fruition of Jesus' prayers before he went to the cross, when he prayed, "that they may be one as we are one - I in them and you in me - so they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." John 17:22-23

And... it's just fun!

The Beauty of the Gospel of Jesus

The Gospel is the most beautiful thing in the world. Jesus is the most beautiful person in the world.

Like when I stop and think about the Gospel and all the riches and treasures it contains, it truly amazes me. Even after all these years of "knowing" it and believing it, I've still barely scratched the surface. There's still so much to know of it and experience of it.

This is the beauty of Jesus to me:

That he would leave his home, that I may come into his home.

That he would lose his beauty in the sight of man, that I may become beautiful in the sight of God.

That he would suffer on the cross, that I may know him as my joy.

That he would be nailed down, that I may experience freedom in him.

That he would be rejected by his Father, that I may be accepted by his Father.

That he would lose his Father's presence in his most painful hour, that I may have His presence in every hour.

That he would die a painful death, that I may live an abundant life.

That he would take the punishment of everything I did wrong, that I may receive the reward of everything he did right.

That he who knew no sin would become sin, so that when God looks upon me he sees no sin. Instead, the righteousness of Jesus.

The extremes Jesus went to for me on the cross... It's full of grace, full of unfairness (in the best way), full of love, full of complete self-sacrifice. He gave away himself for me. Sometimes it's just good to let that soak in.

Passions, Hopes, Dreams on paper

Every 3-4 years I re-evaluate my passions, hopes, and dreams for my life. There is something SO powerful is being able to define those things and write them down. There is something even MORE powerful in going back and seeing how God fulfilled the dreams he has placed in my heart over the course of my 20's.

I dream big. I can't help it, most of the dreams and hopes are things that are impossible or sound too big for a girl like me. Like one of my dreams when I was 22 was to be a part of many cultures and nations and to learn many languages. So God took me to live in Spain and be deeply involved with the lives of the people there. I spent a year and a half diving into the culture and learning Spanish. My friends would take me to their hometowns where I got to experience the people, food, and traditions in ways beyond any tourist type experience. I was even on the local news a few times! haha! And He also took me to North Africa 7 times and I got to learn a little Arabic and learn that culture and about the Islam religion. I made Muslim friends and was able to share my faith with them many times. They even taught me a little French but then told me that I should never try to never learn French cause I had a really bad American accent. :)

I believe when we stop and listen and ask him, God places dreams in our hearts. January 2, 2006, four months until I would graduate college I wrote this:

"I feel hopeless in ever figuring out my calling, where to step, what direction to take. Deep inside there is the desire to aspire to greatness, to matter on this earth. I want to shift my perspective to stop trying to find how I can matter and just make others matter. Help others aspire. As I grow in finding God and wanting him more than any of this, he will take care of me. He will exceed my dreams himself."

And on May 5, 2006, a few days before I graduated college he formed those dreams as I began to write them down. They were vague in my heart, but he had specifics in his view that would only come to fruition through steps of faith, steps into much uncertainty by his leading.

After the fruition of many of those dreams from '06, God brought me to a place again in 2009 where he wanted me to consider new dreams, hopes and passions. I wrote them down again. And over the past 4 years he brought every single one of the 9 dreams and visions and hopes I wrote down to pass. One was, "to be a part of a movement a great work of God with and in this generation." And God allowed me to help start and lead a ministry for young adults in Memphis. Even in the course of working with the Young Adult Community he gave me dreams for the ministry and fulfilled them in great ways.

I have truly seen the faithfulness of God.

So just a few days ago, God led me to do this again. I have discovered new dreams, passions and hopes for my life that truly feel impossible and too big for me. That is how I know they are dreams from God. I wrote them down. My confidence and rest comes in remembering his faithfulness and fulfillment of so many big, impossible dreams I have seen God breath life into and bring to pass in such unconventional ways.

There is just something about defining your dreams and hopes for your life and writing them down on paper. I would've forgotten some of those things. And if I would've forgotten them, I wouldn't have experienced the faithfulness of God in the fulfillment of those things.

"Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!" Luke 1:45

Master Chef and The Christian Life

I was watching Master Chef the other night and something Chef Gordon Ramsay said like just cut to my heart and convicted me and challenged me in the deepest way. I haven't been able to stop thinking about those words for the past week.

They gave all the home cooks like these really expensive langostas (small lobster/crab type of things, apparently rare and expensive and served in nice restaurants). They had 60 minutes to take that and make a dish out of it. This one guy made a simple salad with some langostas on top. In the dramatic climax of the show the angry judges threw his salad in the trash and they were like what did you do with that whole hour?? Then he said it:

"We gave you the best, we only ask for the best from you."

And in my mind I'm imagining like, "What if at the end of life we all appear before the Judge with our dish, with what we made of our life, with what we did with the gospel? What will I bring to the table?"

God gave us the best, he gave us Jesus and this amazingly rich gospel and our lives. What am I gonna make of it, what am I gonna do with it? If he gave me his best am I giving my best back? Am I using my time wisely and using opportunities and ingredients and creativity to make some thing worth tasting?

I want to bring him a dish, a life that will make him proud. Like I want to take what he's given me and invest it and multiply it and make something beautiful of it. I don't want to bring a salad that only took 5 minutes out of the 60 that I was given. I want to bring an amazing dish that took work, creativity and shows off what He has given me. I want God to say, "I gave you my best and you gave your best back." I want to invest in people, love well, serve, give my self away, make disciples with a far-reaching impact, make an eternal impact on the lives of many people. I want to sow seeds of prayer and faith and reap a harvest. I want to bear much fruit, good fruit through remaining connected to the vine and living a life of obedience to him.

I felt recently I haven't been giving my best because I have been in a pit of self pity. And so I repented of that and I asked that my suffering and pain in life would become key ingredients in the work of my life and ministry that I will bring to his table at the end of my life.

I couldn't help but relate this to the parable that Jesus tells where the master gives talents to 3 servants and 2 of them multiply the talents but the last guy buries it to keep it safe. This is what the master says about the guy who played it safe and didn't multiply the investment (kinda like salad guy):

"Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most, And get rid of this "play-it-safe" who won't go out on a limb. Throw him into utter darkness." Matt 25:28-30 (msg). "Risk your life and get more than you ever dreamed of, play it safe and end up holding the bag" Luke 19: 26 (msg)

"You can either multiply your life or bury it" ~ my mom