This is a classic song by Sam Cooke, I've posted both his version and a more modern rendition (because of its images...though they do diverge a little at the end).  

As a continuation of this blog series of posting meaningful videos and music, I don't have much to say about this particular song that you can't pick up yourself (except excuse the subtitles...it was the best youtube version I could find).  This song blows me away...God's relentless, reckless love is overwhelming.  I can't stop listening to this song!  Let me know what you think.

This post is just a little addition to the last one, you have look over the previous one to fully understand this one...I'll be posting another video soon to continue the series...

Holiness is not about living up to a standard of moral excellence, that standard of perfection is unattainable, Jesus even says so when talking about eternal  life with the rich young man when he says, "with man this is impossible..."  "...But, with God all things are possible."  That BUT is where perfect Holiness meets imperfect dirt and dust.  
Grace is our entrance into Holiness, to Perfection, which means in order to begin to live a perfectly Holy life we must first recognize how imperfect and not Holy we are.  Further, we must continually recognize our unworthiness outside of God's Provision in order for Grace to have its full work in us, and in order for Holiness to take full effect.  So, being perfect starts with realizing how imperfect we are, and ends with us being made fully like Christ.
In God's Way of doing things, frailty is strength, brokenness is healing, and desperation is devotion.  Holiness is not something we achieve, it's something we live into, it's a state or way of living and it's not that we don't achieve it in this life..its that we can't.  He did though!  He is Holy, if we live in Him, we are Holy too.  Like I said in the last post, I can't know Him and I can't know Holiness fully, but at the same time, I do know Him, and I am Holy!  Thank you Father!

Sorry for the long delay, but I promise to make it up to you.  Over the course of the next few weeks, I'll be doing a series where every few days I'll post a song and some thoughts of how it's impacted me; what it's made me think about, lyrics that are especially poignant, etc...  Music impacts my life in so many ways, it changes the way I see things often, so I thought I'd share a few thoughts

First, check out this song by Addison Road called "What do I know of Holy" .  Thoughts will be below...

First off, I'm very challenged by the Truth that for all that I think I know about God, I really know about as much as a one cell amoeba knows about the mysteries of the universe.  My knowledge of God, even after being in church for much of my life and spending four years in seminary studying Theology and the Bible, is like a grain of sand on a beach or a piece of salt in the ocean.  I am infinitely small compared to an infinitely big God.  


Further, my understanding of Holy and how to live that out is similarly flawed and incomplete.  Here's Holy...God in flesh EMBRACING the cross...the Father GIVING His ONLY Son...that's the heart of Holiness...the heart of God.  I love that in the song, she admits that just catching of glimpse of who he "might be" is enough to change everything.  Of course we can know things about God, but can you even fathom or begin to understand love that NEVER ends or fails?  


I can say with confidence that I know God...that I love God, and I can say with confidence that I can't even imagine the fullness  and depth of an eternal God.  I do and don't know God, but He knows me in every way.  To me, the limitless riches of Grace and the complete mysteriousness of our Father are what make me fall in love with Him more and more.  I can't know Him fully, I'll never understand eternal Love, and at the same time in the depths of my heart and soul, at the core of who I am...I know Him!  That's Holy...infinite God makes Himself available to little me.


Understanding that sheds a whole new light on living a Holy life.  Maybe it's less about me being Holy and more about Him making me Holy...making me more loving, giving, gentle, compassionate, caring, gracious, etc...  Holiness is more about what He does in me and less about what I do or don't do.  Maybe Holiness is more feeding tbe hungry and less feeding my materialism, more giving my time and less TV time, more seeking out those hardest to love and less spending all my time with those easiest for me to love.  


At the same time...what do I know of Holy?  Let me know what you think of the song. 

In the past year I've begun to understand hard times in our lives in a totally different light.  Now, instead of blaming God (which still happens sometimes unfortunately), I've chosen to view the hard times more as discipline rather than be consumed with self-pity.  Hebrews 12 deals with this issue in particular, and verse 2 in this chapter has especially caught my attention.

In v.2, the author encourages us to "fix our eyes on Jesus...who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame..."  All of a sudden a new revelation came to mind.  I understand Jesus didn't enjoy the suffering of the cross, that he "endured" it much like we endure hardship (only at an infinitely deeper level), but I've never fully appreciated that he "scorned" shame and guilt and sin and death.  Even in his darkest moment, Jesus didn't give in.  Jesus never gives in to evil.  The only thing he ever gave to evil was himself, as a sacrifice for all the times you and I gave in. 

Jesus takes an active role in dealing with issues, attitudes, and problems that seek to defeat him.  He doesn't passively give in, like we do when we say "that's life," or "everybody goes through it," or something like that.  Shame and sin sought to scorn and ridicule him, but instead of them defeating him, he scorned, condemned and defeated them. 

How different would our lives be if we stopped living defeated, passive lives filled with guilt and shame, and started believing in the Resurrection.  Started living into the victory we have over sin and death, and taking an active approach to the things that try to overtake us, whether people, situations, or own false sense of self.  I am no longer a slave to sin and death, the only power over me they have is the power I allow them to have and I won't allow them power anymore!

Live the Resurrection!

I'm sorry it's been so long since my last post, it's been a busy time, which is not an excuse, and a really interesting time. 

I believe that in this life people are primarily looking for Life and Love (a friend of mine, quoting another youth pastor, is the one who originally brought these two words and this thought to me).  Everywhere you look companies are selling ways to improve your life in some way, or ways to experience love and fulfillment somehow.  The great thing about following Christ is that He has Life and Love to offer in abundance!  Because God is Life and Love, you can't really fully experience all of Life and Love until you experience God.  You can experience pieces, even significant moments of both, but not the fullness of either without The Initiator and Source of both.

However, as an offshoot of that, Life and Love express themselves differently in different circumstances and times, and one of the primary ways I've been bombarded with recently is their expression, or lack thereof, through peace.  Over and over again over the past week and a half I've either had someone talk to me about needing peace, or I've been in desperate need of it myself.  The truth of this life is that testing, trials, and hard times come frequently...in some cases, everyday.  Jesus promised us as much in John 16:33.  Peace is hard to come by in a broken, dying, war-ravaged world.  Life sometimes seems more like a death sentence that we're just waiting out, rather than a joy-filled adventure full of twists and turns.  Everyday brings new tests and trials...new opportunities to live fully or die slowly. 

The key to peace, and experiencing Life fully, has less to do with our circumstance and situations, and more to do with our beliefs, mindsets, and actions.  It's not a matter of whether you'll be tested (you will), or whether you can experience peace in the testing or trial (it's always available), but how you respond to those situations (Philipians 4:4-7).  A pastor who I intently follow and greatly respect, Steven Furtick of Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC) said it this way on his blog recently:

"If you’re going through a time of testing right now, keep this in mind:

The way you respond to this test
Determines what you get to do next.

If you fail the test, you must repeat the grade level.  Or, you can pick up the credit hours in summer school.  Either way, wouldn’t you rather just do it right the first time around?

You can’t clep out of any of the courses in God’s divine degree program.  Whatever you’re going through today is a prerequisite for the next level of His plan for your life.

Show up early.  Stay late.  Get a tutor.  Do your homework.  Sharpen your #2 pencils.  And hang in there through your test.

Graduation day is closer than you think…"

Times of testing and trial will always be there, and as you pass one test and move into another, they'll get bigger and bigger, but so will your resolve!  and so will your ability to experience the peace of God in them!  Our God is bigger than...!  Be ready!  Believe!  Experience!  Pass!  And have Peace!

If we really believe in Resurrection, and the power that comes along with it through Christ, then we should have no problem dying to our selves, past, present, or future.  So, why do I have so much trouble letting go?  

I know this isn't an original thought, and it's kind of morbid, but either Saturday sometime while I was pressure washing, or Sunday morning in the shower (I can't remember), I had a thought about my life and what I wanted people to say about me when I die.  Don't ask me why I was thinking about this, but I do think it's helpful to sometimes think about how we want our lives to end up so that we can begin to live that way right now (you know...the whole "begin with the end in mind" thing). 

As I was thinking about what I wanted people to say, this very simple thought came to me.  I'm sure it's not original, and I know Jesus said something similar in Matthew 16 when he said, "what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul" and "whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it", but for me this is a simple but powerful way to express what I hope people will say about how I lived my life:

About my life:  He died!

About my death:  He Lives!

That's it!  That's all I want anyone to say about me.  The shortest funeral ever!  All Glory goes to God because of His Love and Life...my story is simple...His-Story is eternal and I'm just a very small part of that.  Thank you Lord for even letting me be a little piece! 

What do you want said about you?  Let me know, leave a comment...

Mike and I just got an incredible opportunity to not only eat lunch at one of the local schools (like we do almost every Wednesday), but, at the invitation of a couple of students, to go and sit in on a religion class at this school.  We were pretty nervous at first since we weren't sure we were even supposed to be there, but once the class started and we got to know the teacher a little better (who seems to be doing a great job in challenging the students), we had some very interesting conversation!  Part of where the conversation went is in how traditional, stale, and boring Christianity in the South can be, specifically in Montgomery.   It seems that to be a follower of Christ in the South, you have to be Republican, Middle Class (at least), and go to Church every Sunday (which I think is a good thing by the way).   And people who are outside of those ranges, like a Democrat for example (note: I am an Independent), are looked at and talked to differently.  I could name several examples off the top of my head.

However, the bigger issue here is not what a follower of Christ looks like, but how we as Christians constantly detain our Universe-Creating, Big God by handcuffing him with our own limitations and viewpoints of what He should or shouldn't look like or do.  In Judges 13:16, Samson's parents try to "detain" the angel of the Lord to stay with them and continue to explain how to raise Samson, but the angel won't be detained, the angel has other work and must continue to move on according to God's Will.  On the Mount of Transfiguration, in Matthew 17, Peter wants to stay on the mountaintop with the Transfigured Jesus and his friends (Moses--the Law, and Elijah--the Prophets), but Jesus won't be enshrined on any mountaintop, He must  always be doing the will of the Father and moving forward.  God's Call and Will don't always include things that will bring glory to us, but continuing to live into His Call, according to His Will, will always bring glory to Him! 

God will not, and can not, be detained, boxed, shackled, or conformed to any image.  He is always bigger than our image and view of Him, and at the exact moment we think we have Him figured out, He will break whatever mold we've made of Him--no matter how good we may think it is!  Think about it this way...you will never know all that God has to offer and give because He is infinite, and so is all He has to offer and give, and we will spend eternity experiencing Him in new ways!  That is a big God!  One of my mentors and friends, Morgan Morrow, said it perfectly in a comment on another blog post:

         "It helps me to remember that God is not a bigger version of us. He is not even a MUCH BIGGER VERSION of 
          us...He is completely Other than us and so is His love. He is inviting us to day-by-day, one-stumble-after
          another, learn to walk in that love.

          This is not just an adventure, it is THE adventure. Everything else is boring without it."