Glory Days

Glory Days (Thomas Nelson, 2015)

Glory Days: Living Your Promised Land Life Now is the latest book by Max Lucado, teaching pastor at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas.  Max’s book is based on the Glory Days of Israel- seven glistening years sandwiched between the difficult days of Exodus and the dark days of the judges.  Canaan is a metaphor for the life we can have right now, a real state of the heart and mind, a spiritual reality.  Canaan is “a life defined by grace, refined by challenge, and aligned with a heavenly call.” God already has given us Canaan.  We have everything we need to be everything God desires.  In Canaan we don’t fight for victory, we fight from victory.

The most important tool in your spiritual growth is the Bible.  Pastor Lucado emphasizes that it is not enough for you to possess the Bible.  God wants the Bible to possess you.  In the Promised Land it is necessary to walk by faith, lean on grace, and hear God’s voice more.  Satan isn’t troubled at all by your wilderness days, but he steps up his attacks as you enter the Promised Land.  In order to see Jesus, your eyes cannot be on your Jericho and your lips cannot speak the language of impossibility.

Help comes when we lift our eyes to see Jesus and live out of our inheritance, not our circumstance.  In doing so, we move from false premises to God’s promises.  Although the blessing of God’s favor is no guarantee of an easy life, it is the assurance of God’s help.  It is essential to consult God in everything and call on God for great things.  As we apply this to God’s unique gifting for us, Max reminds us that God’s definition of a promotion isn’t a move up the corporate or educational ladder, but a move toward our call.

Promised Land people don’t naively deny the existence of problems.  They immerse their minds in God-thoughts.  Standing at the crossroads of faith and unbelief, Promised Land people choose faith and press into God’s promises.  God not only stays with you, He fights for you so you can live the Promised Land life He desires for you.  Max summarizes God’s goal for you:

“This is your inheritance: more victory than defeat, more joy than sadness, more hope than despair.  These days are Glory Days.”

 

Glory Days

Pulling down strongholds

“The weapons of our warfare are  . . . mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.”- 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (NKJV)

As Max Lucado continues Chapter 8 of Glory Days, he encourages us that things are different in Canaan because God always will give us the strength to face life’s challenges.  Our hang-ups and addictions do not have the last word.  Pastor Lucado summarizes:

“Today’s problem is not necessarily tomorrow’s problem.  Don’t incarcerate yourself by assuming it is.  Resist self-labeling. . . . These words create alliances with the devil.  They give him access to your spirit. . . . Live out of your inheritance, not your circumstance.”

Again, ultimately every battle is a spiritual battle.  Satan is no paper tiger.  He has designed your fall.  Therefore, you need a strategy for pulling down strongholds in your life.  Max defines a stronghold this way:

“A stronghold is a false premise that denies God’s promise. . . . It seeks to eclipse our discovery of God.  It attempts to magnify the problem and minimize God’s ability to solve it.”

If a stronghold has a strong hold on you, you probably are speaking the language of impossibility.  Your Jericho is brought to the ground when you keep God center stage, employing every tool God offers- worship, Scripture, the Lord’s Supper, and prayer.

Today’s question (from the study guide): When has God asked you to take a step of faith toward demolishing a stronghold?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Be steadfast, immovable”

 

Pulling down strongholds

Walk circles around Jericho

Max Lucado begins Chapter 8 (“Walk Circles Around Jericho”) of Glory Days with a recap of some Jericho facts.  The immense and impenetrable walls consisted of two concentric circles rising a total of forty feet above the ground.  Jericho’s inhabitants were ferocious and barbaric.  God, not Joshua, was responsible for bringing down those walls.  Pastor Lucado reminds us God will do that for us as well.  Max goes on to define our Jericho:

“Your Jericho is your fear.  Your Jericho is your anger, bitterness, or prejudice.  Your insecurity about the future.  Your guilt about the past.  Your negativity, anxiety, and proclivity to criticize, overanalyze, or compartmentalize.  Your Jericho is any attitude or mind-set that keeps you from joy, peace, or rest.”

Jericho is the barrier between you and your Glory Days.  Jericho is big, evil, and blocks your way.  In order to live in the Promised Land, your Jericho must be faced.  This is not always an easy process, for every level of inheritance reached necessitates a disinheritance from Satan.  Before the saint can move in, Satan must be moved out.

The devil will fight, resist, and push back.  But Jesus already has won the victory for us.  As Max notes, the question is not, will you overcome.  The question is when you will overcome.

Today’s question: What Jericho-like strongholds has Satan erected in your territory?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Pulling down strongholds”

Walk circles around Jericho

Call on Your Commander

In Chapter 7 (“Call on Your Commander”) of Glory Days, Max Lucado writes that when Joshua and his soldiers faced the challenge of Jericho’s high walls and protected sides, he had a divine encounter during this dark, difficult time.

Perhaps, Pastor Lucado observes, like Joshua you’re facing a unique challenge.  Like Jericho, your challenge is imposing, strong, thick-walled, and impenetrable.  It stands between you and a Promised Land life.  But you must face it.

When Joshua neared Jericho, he looked up and saw a commander of the army of the Lord.  Max states his message to Joshua was unmistakable: Jericho may have its walls, but, Joshua, you have more.  You have God.  He is with you (emphasis author’s).

A reminder of God’s mighty presence is all we need.  God is near.  We never are alone, even in our darkest hour.  Part of our inheritance is God’s presence.  This truth is certain: God comes to His people.  There are no exceptions to this promise!  Max encourages us to take our eyes off our Jericho so that we’ll see Jesus:

“Look to Jesus to comfort you.  Turn your gaze away from Jericho.  You’ve looked at it long enough.  No need to memorize its circumference or itemize its stones.  Healing happens as we look to our commander. . . . Jericho may be strong.  But Jesus is stronger.  Let him be your strength.”

Today’s question: What Jericho has loomed large following your ministry downsizing or vocation loss?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Walk Circles Around Jericho”

 

Call on Your Commander

Remember whose you are

As Max Lucado continues Chapter 6 of Glory Days, he encourages and reminds us that Satan has no recourse to our testimony.  A good memory is our best weapon against Satan’s attacks.  Max suggests creating a trophy room of memories in your heart.  For example, before David faced Goliath, he faced his future by revisiting his past.  Yet, it’s also important to remember whose you are.

When the devil draws near, Pastor Lucado states, take a stand against him:

“Give him no quarter.  Don’t take his lies.  Don’t stand for his accusations.  Don’t cower at his attacks.  When he dredges up your past mistakes, tell him whose you are.  He has no recourse to this truth.  He knows who you are.  He just hopes you don’t or that you will forget.  So prove to him that you know and remember.”

In Joshua 5:2, the Lord reestablished the practice of circumcision so the children of Israel could reclaim their birthright as God’s chosen people as well as symbolically separate from their past.  They had a new identity.

Similarly, Paul writes in Colossians 2:11 that “in him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism.”

How to survive in enemy territory?:

1.  Remember what God has done


2. Remember whose you are

Today’s question (from the study guide): What would help you remember to don your full spiritual armor when you face trials?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Call on Your Commander”

Remember whose you are

Don"t forget to remember

As Max Lucado begins Chapter 6 of Glory Days, he remarks that, for a book about military conquests, Joshua really skimps on battle details.  We don’t know the military details because the emphasis in Joshua is not on physical battles, but on a spiritual one.  Therefore, the book of Joshua isn’t about claiming land for a displaced nation.  It’s about preserving a stage for God’s plan of redemption.  The key for us- don’t forget to remember.

Satan’s counterstrategy is to destroy God’s people and God’s work.  Pastor Lucado reminds us our Promised Land is rife with the enemy’s voice:

“He’s [Satan} ticked off with you.  All this talk about Glory Days and Promised Land living has him in a foul mood.  Your wilderness days did not trouble him.  But now you are stepping into your Promised Land life.  Daring to walk in faith, not fear; leaning on grace, not guilt; hearing God’s voice more, the devil’s voice less.”

Satan, Max cautions us, has us in his sights.  We’re in enemy territory.  In Joshua 4 the Israelites were camping in Canaan for the first time in five centuries.  But God had one more word for them before they conquered Jericho- remember.  After one man from each tribe had gathered a stone from the Jordan River bed, Joshua stacked them as a lasting remembrance of how God had dried up the Jordan so the Israelites could cross.

Max shares the secret of surviving in enemy territory: Remember . . . Remember what God has done.

Today’s question: In what significant ways has God blessed you in the past?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Remember whose you are”

Don"t forget to remember

The smallest step

“With God the smallest step of faith can activate the mightiest of miracles.”- Max Lucado

“By this [crossing] you shall know that the living God is among you.”- Joshua 3:10

Max Lucado opens Chapter 5 (Unpack Your Bags”) of Glory Days with the story of country singer Jimmy Wayne.  According to Jimmy, at the age of thirteen his often-imprisoned mother and her troublemaker boyfriend dumped Jimmy in a bus station parking lot and drove off.  Homeless, Jimmy eventually found work mowing grass for an older couple and soon was invited to live in their home.  Still, it took a long time for Jimmy to unpack his bag and accept his new home.

After our ministry downsizing or vocation loss we feel turned out- and may wonder if God will do the same as our former employer.  Pastor Lucado states God answered this question at the cross.  We are God’s children.  Max continues:

“Promised Land people believe this.  They trust God’s hold on them more than their hold on God.  They place their trust in the finished work of Christ.”

The followers of Joshua looked not to Calvary but to the Jordan River.  The miraculous crossing was convincing evidence of God’s presence.  Even so, when the priests got to the Jordan, they didn’t plunge right in.  They dipped their feet.  The smallest step activated the mightiest of miracles.

Pastor Lucado asks if we’re deeply convinced that we’ve been dramatically delivered.  While life has many questions, God’s ability to save shouldn’t be one of them.  Like Jimmy Wayne, our best days will begin when we unpack our bags.

Today’s question (study guide):  What do you need to embrace about God’s character in order to unpack your bags?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Don’t forget to remember”

The smallest step

The chorus of grace

“I was . . . but now . . . This is the chorus of grace.”- Max Lucado

“By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.”- Hebrews 11:31

In Chapter 4 (“It’s Okay If You’re Not Okay”) of Glory Days, Max Lucado discusses the story of Rahab, as found in Joshua 2.  Pastor Lucado notes that much could be said about Rahab without mentioning her profession.  A Canaanite, she provided cover for Joshua’s spies.  Joshua 2:11 contains her confession of faith: ” . . . for the Lord, your God is God in heaven above and on earth below.”

After the fall of Jericho, Rahab was assimilated into the Hebrew culture and married Salmon.  She bore Salmon a son named Boaz.  Boaz had a great-great grandson by the name of David- a direct lineage to Jesus.

When the Israelites surrounded Jericho, Rahab was at the bottom of life’s pit.  Similar to Rahab, we’ve all sold out in some way- our allegiance, affection, attention, or talents.  Max suggests we might feel like this:

“Glory Days?  Perhaps for him or her.  But not for me.  I am too . . . soiled, dirty, afflicted.  I have sinned too much, stumbled too often, floundered too long.  I’m on the garbage heap of society.  No Glory Days for me.”

When we have such thoughts, all we need to do is speak the chorus of grace.

Today’s question (study guide): What failures or limitations have made the Promised Land life seem out of reach for you?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “The smallest step”

The chorus of grace

Christ or the crisis?

“Storms are coming your way.  Winds will howl, your boat will be tossed, and you will have a choice.  Will you hear Christ or the crisis?”- Max Lucado

Max Lucado concludes Chapter 3 of Glory Days by discussing “Jesus Calms the Storm” (Mark 4:35-41).  Max concentrates his focus on Jesus’ rebuke to the disciples in v.40- “Do you still have no faith?”

Pastor Lucado states the reason for Jesus’ rebuke is simple.  The disciples didn’t take Him at His word.  Jesus told them they were going to the other side, not to the middle of the lake to drown.  Jesus had declared the outcome.

As we recite, rehearse, and reconsider God’s Word over and over again, our way will be prosperous.  However, while we in the United States often associate prosperity with money, the Bible’s focus is not so narrow.  In the Bible prosperity primarily refers to a wealthy mind, spirit, and body.  As Max concludes, we need to heed the promises of Scripture rather than the noise of the storm:

“Glory Days require an ongoing trust in God’s Word.  Wilderness people trust Scripture, just enough to escape Egypt.  Canaan dwellers, on the other hand, make the Bible their go-to book for life. . . . Canaan is loud with enemy voices.  The devil megaphones doubt and death into our ears.  Take heed to the voice you heed.”

Will it be Christ or the crisis?

Today’s question (study guide): What voices around you echo the truth of Scripture?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “The chorus of grace”

 

Christ or the crisis?

Strong and very courageous

“Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go.  The Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night . . .”- Joshua 1:7-8

In Chapter 3 (“Take Heed to the Voice You Heed”) of Glory Days, Max Lucado emphasizes that it wasn’t enough for Joshua to possess the Scriptures.  God desired for the Scriptures to possess Joshua.

Likewise, the Bible is our most important tool for spiritual growth- to become strong and very courageous, as Greg Hawkins and Cally Parkinson note in their book Move: What 1,000 Churches Reveal about Spiritual Growth.

Pastor Lucado tells a story about a farmer who asked his son to till straight lines in preparing a field.  The son was to select an object on the far side of the field and plow straight at it.  When the farmer checked on the boy’s progress, every line was crooked.  The son said he’d selected an object- but the rabbit kept hopping!

During our desert, land between time, people’s opinions or cultural standards may influence us to chart our course to the right or to the left.  We need an unmoving target, the unchanging principles of God’s Word.  God’s Word must be authoritative!

Today’s question: What “rabbits” have disrupted your focus on God’s Word?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Christ or the crisis?”

 

Strong and very courageous

Joint heirs with Christ

“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs- heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.”- Romans 8:16-17

As Max Lucado continues Chapter 2 of Glory Days, he notes that the word inheritance appears nearly sixty times in the book of Joshua. Joshua 24:28 describes the great accomplishment of the Hebrew people: “So Joshua let the people depart, each to his own inheritance.”

Pastor Lucado reminds us we have an inheritance as well.  If, through the power of the Holy Spirit, you have given your heart to Christ, God has given Canaan to you.  You already have “everything you need to be everything God desires.”

Conversion, Max adds, is not just the removal of sin.  It’s a deposit of power.  Glory Days signal a paradigm shift:

“In Canaan you do not fight for victory.  You fight from victory.  In the wilderness you strive.  In Canaan you trust.”

In the apostle Paul’s time, it was traditional for the firstborn son to receive a double portion of the inheritance, with the remaining siblings dividing up the rest. But with God, Christ’s portion is our portion.  However, even though God promises to meet all our needs, still we worry and fret.

Pastor Lucado believes there are two reasons for this: either (1) we don’t know about our inheritance or (2) we don’t believe in our inheritance.  Max encourages us:

“You are embedded with the presence of God.  Don’t measure your life by your ability; measure it by God’s. . . . And since you have access to every blessing of heaven, you, in time, will find strength.”

Today’s question (from the study guide): What parts of your inheritance do you still struggle with?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Strong and very courageous”

Joint heirs with Christ

The End of Me

The End of Me (David C. Cook, 2015)

The End of Me: Where Real Life in the Upside-Down Ways of Jesus Begins is the most recent book by Kyle Idleman, teaching pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky.  In the first section, Kyle focuses on four specific beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount that lead us down the narrow path to real life.  The second section describes the great kingdom paradox- how we are in the best position to be used by God in significant ways when we get to the end of ourselves.

Jesus wants to go a little deeper, beyond the surface of life, to what’s inside us- what makes the surface the way it is.  This is a question of being broken , not a question of brokenness.  Pastor Idleman observes that the end of me often comes when our dreams come to an end.  Yet, it is possible to wake up from a nightmare to a dream, experiencing God’s presence as never before.  Because God looks at the heart as the true measure of who we are and nothing can be faked in His presence, there is no substitute for humbling ourselves before God.  This is a proactive, not passive process.

Kyle states that we struggle with authenticity- it’s a risk we don’t want to take.  Nevertheless, the author writes, “Jesus calls us to live one life and live it out in the open.”  Jesus’ name for that is purity of heart.  Our emptiness means God has us right where He wants us, for Jesus fills that emptiness with joy and abundance.  It is unnecessary to settle for the full life when we can pursue the filled life.  Jesus is our only hope.  All we need to do is bring Him our helplessness.  Jesus will meet us there at the end of ourselves.

God’s favorite time for this to happen is right now.  God simply asks for our faith and obedience.  Temporal pursuits will fade away.  Only God’s plan and will truly matter.  Contrary to limited finite thought, our “disqualifier” becomes God’s qualifier- and God doesn’t choose us without equipping us to carry out His unique mission for our life.  Human weakness creates the space God fill with His strength.

 

The End of Me

A raging pestilence- "I can"t"

Max Lucado begins Chapter 2 (“Inherit Your Inheritance”) of Glory Days with the bold assertion that it is time to declare war on a raging pestilence that goes by the name “I can’t.”  This malady contaminates lives by attacking our self-control, our careers, and our faith.

Pastor Lucado says no one would have blamed Joshua if he had muttered these words.  Moses had died- and their was no leader like him,  Yet, in Joshua 1:2, God told Joshua: “Moses . . . is dead.  Now therefore, arise.”  Max states that this hints of a major theme in the book of Joshua:

“God’s power alters the score. Moses may be dead, but God is alive.  The leader has passed, but the Leader lives on.”

Even so, Joshua had two additional excuses for saying “I can’t”:

1.  two million inexperienced Hebrews- battlefield tenderfeet


2. bloodthirsty, barbaric tribes like the Canaanites and Amorites

Joshua never declared defeat because God gave him a reason for faith.  God told Joshua and the children of Israel to cross the Jordan to the land He was giving to them.  In other words, the land already had been transferred. The transaction already had happened.  Max concludes:

“Joshua wasn’t present to take the land but to receive the land God had taken.  Victory was certain because the victory was God’s.”

Today’s question (from the study guide): What do you think you can’t do that you suspect God thinks you can do?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: the latest addition to the Annotated Bibliography, The End of Me

 

A raging pestilence- "I can"t"

Our Promised Land

“Our Promised Land isn’t a physical territory; it is a spiritual reality.  It’s not real estate but a real state of the heart and mind.”- Max Lucado

Max Lucado continues Chapter 1 of Glory Days by asserting that Canaan is not a metaphor for heaven.  Rather, Canaan represents the life we can have right now.  Pastor Lucado describes the Promised Land life:

“Canaan is a life defined by grace, refined by challenge, aligned with a heavenly call.  In God’s plan, in God’s land . . . we may stumble, but we do not collapse.  We may struggle, but we defy despair.  We boast only in Christ, trust only in God, lean wholly on his power.  We enjoy abundant fruit and increasing faith.”

In contrast, Max understands the wilderness as representing the defeated Christian life.  For the children of Israel, complaint was their default response.  Max quips that the children of Israel “inhaled anxiety like oxygen.”  So God gave them a forty-year time out to think about their attitude.  While they were saved from Pharaoh, they were stuck in the desert.

Beginning in 2007, the REVEAL Research Project surveyed members of over one thousand churches to determine the percentage of church goers actually propelled by their faith to love God and others with their whole hearts.  Only eleven percent of Christians described their days as Glory Days.

Pastor Lucado asks if there’s a sense of disconnect between the Bible’s promises and the reality of your life.  With God’s help, you can close that gap.  Yes, Max states, there will be challenges, but you can expect great progress, and “breakthroughs will outnumber breakdowns.”

Today’s question (from the study guide): On a “grumbling to grateful” scale of one (grumbling) to ten (grateful), where do you fall right now?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: A raging pestilence- “I can’t”

 

Our Promised Land

These days are Glory Days

“These days are Glory Days.  My past is past, my future is bright, God’s promises are true and his Word is sure.  With God as my helper, I will be all he wants me to be, do all he wants me to do, and receive all he wants me to receive.  These days are Glory Days.”- Max Lucado

Glory Days: Living Your Promised Land Life Now is the latest book by Max Lucado.  Max begins Chapter 1 (“Glory Days”) with the observation that the seven years between the difficult days of Exodus and the dark ages of the judges were the Glory Days of Israel.  God spoke.  Joshua listened.

Max emphasizes that we may need a new season as well.  We just need to get through the week.  Rejection and heartache are staring us down.  Discouragement is rampant.

Pastor Lucado relates the story of a family he saw racing through the airport concourse to their departure gate.  While the wife and older brothers were able to keep up with dad, their little five-year-old brother could not.  Exasperated, he plopped his bag on the floor, sat on it, and shouted in their direction, “I can’t keep up!”

Max understands that feeling and offers words of encouragement:

“Sometimes the challenge is just too much.  You want to keep up.  You try.  It’s not that you don’t.  You just run out of fight.  Life has a way of taking the life out of us.  The book of Joshua . . . dares us to believe our best days are ahead of us.  God has a Promised Land for us to take.”

Today’s question (from the book’s study guide): What are you having trouble keeping us with lately?  Please share.

Coming Monday: the latest addition to the Annotated Bibliography, The End of Me

Tomorrow’s blog: “Our Promised Land”

 

These days are Glory Days

Weak to be strong

Kyle Idleman’s theme in Chapter 8 (“Weak to Be Strong”) of The End of Me is that “our weaknesses create a space that God wants to fill with strength.”  Our weakness is the best setting for God to display His strength.  Jesus stepped into poverty, weakness, and obscurity so that the only thing left for us to say is, “Look what God can do.”

In 2  Corinthians 12:9, Pastor Idleman states, Paul is speaking about the difference between having strength and leaning on it.  Kyle adds:

“God doesn’t demonstrate his strength even though we’re weak- he demonstrates it precisely through the weakness.”

Corrie ten Boom, author of The Hiding Place, wrote another book titled Tramp for the Lord.  In that book Corrie tells about a Russian woman she met during the Cold War, when Christians were persecuted in Russia.  Multiple sclerosis left the woman with the physical ability to control only her right index finger.  With that one finger, she translated and typed the Bible and other Christian books into Russian.  The secret police ignored the woman because they didn’t consider her a threat- so she was able to work freely right under their noses.

Kyle leaves us with the following questions:

1.  How many times have I turned away from some challenge because  I wasn’t sure I had what it took and I was afraid to face the idea of weakness?


2.  How many blessings have I missed out on, not because I wasn’t capable, but because I wasn’t vulnerable?

Today’s question (from Kyle): How have you noticed God’s strength in spite of your weaknesses?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “These days are Glory Days”

Weak to be strong

Your point of disqualification

In Chapter 7 of The End of Me, Kyle Idleman concludes his discussion of five reasons we feel disqualified to be chosen, with a specific emphasis on your point of disqualification.

3. “They won’t forget.”  Pastor Idleman encourages us not to worry about how others see us.  Even if we don’t know where we stand with others, we have to move forward.  Others don’t determine our future.  God does.

Kyle stresses that God asks “for faith and obedience.  His plan and his will are all that matter, because the lesson he’s teaching almost always flips our assumptions on their head.”

4. “I dishonored my good name.”  The author states that God often renamed people for this very reason.  And whatever burden you’re carrying, God has a message for you.  When you come to the end of yourself, God can use you in the very best way.  One of God’s favorite strategies is to use the very issue you feel is holding you back.  Kyle notes: “Your disqualifier becomes God’s qualifier.”

5.  “I’m not ready.”  Even if you’ve heard the previous excuses and acknowledge God’s track record of redemption, there’s one last excuse to play- “I’m not ready.”  Kyle encourages you to jump before you’re ready to leap.  He describes what God will do:

“In what seems like the smallest of moments, in brief encounters with other people, he’ll take you and speak a life-changing word through you.  When God chooses you, he equips you.  Every time.”

Today’s question: Which of Kyle’s five reasons resonates most with you?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Weak to be strong”

Your point of disqualification

"I missed my chance"

Kyle Idleman continues Chapter 7 of The End of Me by discussing five reasons we may feel disqualified to be chosen.  The first two, “I missed my chance” and “You don’t want me” are presented today.

1.  “I missed my chance.”  This reason for not stepping up is a time disqualification.  The clock has run out.  The buzzer has sounded.  The game is over.  You’ve missed your window of opportunity.  Pastor Idleman comments:

“How sad if some of us think God looks at us and sees an overdue expiration date.”

2.  “You don’t want me.”  Kyle writes that one of the saddest responses he hears when talking to people about serving God is, “God doesn’t want me.  Not after what I’ve done.”

Consider Peter- aka “The Rock.”  After he denied Jesus three times, he retreated to his old life of fishing.   Out on his boat early in the morning, Peter, Kyle theorizes, reflected on the miracle that Jesus had qualified him and the tragedy he’d disqualified himself.  Yet, there Jesus was on the shore, telling Peter work still needed to be done.

Pastor Idleman believes Peter probably was surrounded by jabbering voices all too eager to remind him of his past.  When that happens to you, don’t listen to those voices or take them to heart.  Kyle concludes:

“Coming to the end of me also means allowing Jesus to put an end to the guilt and shame of the past.”

Today’s question: What Bible verses enable you to counter the first two reasons for feeling disqualified to serve?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Your point of disqualification”

"I missed my chance"

Arise, shine!

David, age 5, visits Santa.

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.”- Isaiah 60:1

“The question is not, ‘Do you have a problem?’  The question is, ‘Does the problem have you?’ “- Joel Osteen

When I reminisce about second grade at Northeast School in Evergreen Park, Illinois, three distinct memories surface.  The first two are sitting in a circle singing “This Old Man” while waiting to go on a field trip to the circus and attending Miss Wilson’s wedding at the end of the school year.  Walking upstairs to the school library, located in an enclosed balcony at the back of the cafeteria/gym, for testing by the school psychologist is the third.

According to my mother’s most certainly apocryphal account, I was quite the chatterbox and Miss Wilson suspected boredom.  One question the psychologist asked was, “Which of these substances is the hardest?”  I answered, “An egg.”  My second grade brain reasoned if chicks could take nearly an hour to hatch in the Museum of Science and Industry’s incubator, an egg shell must be the hardest substance on earth!

Hard times prompt that age-old question: Why?  Laura Story points out that asking “why” can be an important help in processing grief.  However, focusing too intently on life’s whys is like running on a treadmill- one never seems to get anywhere and the end product is exhaustion.  The Message, in its paraphrase of John 9:3, provides the solution:

Jesus said, “You’re asking the wrong question.  You’re looking for someone to blame.  There is no such cause-effect here.  Look instead for what God can do.”

Arise, shine!  Ultimately, it becomes beneficial to stop asking why and seek ways to bring glory to the Heavenly Father.  Hope provides the foundation for revitalizing faith.  John Ortberg differentiates two types of hope:

“Hope comes in two flavors: hoping for something and hoping in someone.”

As a kindergartener sitting on Santa’s lap, my wish was for something.  Decades later, the purifying fire of adversity has forged a faith centered on hope in Jesus.  Even on the day of His birth, something about Jesus had a way of forcing people to take a stand.  Centuries ago, Blaise Pascal said:

“In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.”

Arise, shine!  Your light has come!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHNTeX0eOIk

 

 

 

Arise, shine!

Disqualified to be chosen

In Chapter 7 (“Disqualified to Be Chosen”) of The End of Me, Kyle Idleman postulates that most of us want to experience serving God in some way (or serving Him anew) and probably even have some ideas how that ministry would move forward.  However, we may feel we’re disqualified to serve either due to something we lack or by circumstances in our life.

Pastor Idleman asks us to take a look at the resume of the apostle Paul, who first appears in Acts 7 as Saul.  Saul is present at the stoning of Stephen- and Acts is clear about where Saul’s sentiments lie.  Acts 8 states Saul now is a mob leader.  Saul “began to destroy the church.  Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison” (8:3).  Chapter 9 finds Saul “breathing murderous threats” against the Christians (v.1).

Then, on what Kyle refers to as “the long and blinding road” to Damascus, God goes well beyond knocking Saul off his (high) horse:

“He [God] takes Saul and reinvents him as the leader of the Christian movement, the first evangelist to those outside the Jewish faith, and the first great theologian of Christianity.  If anyone was disqualified for leadership, shouldn’t it have been a man who murdered believers and organized search and destroy missions against the church?”

Pastor Idleman says it’s not that Jesus needed Paul.  God was sending a message to Paul- and to us.  Kyle next takes a look at five reasons we feel disqualified to be chosen and how God’s message counters our misbeliefs.

Today’s question (from Kyle): If money and time were no issue, what would you want God to use you for?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: the Christmas Short Meditation- “Arise, shine!”

Disqualified to be chosen

A landscape of joy

“Anyone who can be in a landscape of joy while maintaining immunity to it hasn’t come to the end of himself.”- Kyle Idleman

Kyle Idleman concludes Chapter 6 of The End of Me by observing that the miracle of the paralyzed man’s healing should have a happy ending.  The Pharisees, however, make sure this miracle story ends on a sour note.

Even though the Pharisees had just witnessed a miraculous cure, their shortsightedness causes them to nitpick the fact that the man lifted his mat on a day of rest.  As Kyle quips, “the Pharisees wanted to make a citizen’s arrest for unauthorized use of a bedroll.”

Pastor Idleman encourages us to experience how good the good news really is.  He states we:

“. . . should see that someone else’s victory over hopelessness is our own victory, because Christ has brought the same liberation to every single one of us willing to say yes, to stand, to walk.”

God’s favorite time for us to ask for help is . . . now!  God not only has no time limits, He has no limits at all.  No matter how long our desert, land between time, God’s favorite time is now.  Kyle concludes:

“It’s not too late and never has been.  And there’s never been a better time, a more perfect time, than the present moment.  That’s always the one in which he wants to meet you.”

Today’s question (from Kyle): What are your thoughts on the idea that the more helpless you are, the better?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Disqualified to be chosen”

 

 

 

 

A landscape of joy

Fear of change

“Fear of change can be highly motivating- and ultimately limiting.”- Kyle Idleman

Kyle Idleman continues Chapter 6 of The End of Me as he discusses two reasons people lay down “roots in a place of quiet desperation and low expectations” rather than accept help.

1.  Fear of change.  The man at the Bethesda Pool had been crippled for almost four decades.  His mat was his home, the pool his community.  He was who he was.  As Pastor Idleman notes, it’s amazing what people can learn to endure in the face of positive alternatives:

“We accept a lot of things we know could be better. . . . We decide God must want us to be here, because if he didn’t, he’d make something else happen.  In other words, we blame God. . . . After a while we get used to things, and a limited life is less frightening than the thought of change.  Resignation is better than disappointment.”

If we believe God is at fault for the situation we find ourselves in, why would we ask God for help?

2.  Denial of reality.  The man at the pool no longer had any concept of what a healthy life should be like.  As Kyle notes, his environment was compressed to the boundary of Bethesda’s five colonnades.  The man was around hurting people 24/7.  His view of reality as skewed- unhealthy had become the new normal.  The reality was he needed help.  Jesus was this man’s only hope, just as He is ours.

Today’s question: How has fear of change limited you on your desert, transitional journey?  Please share.

Coming Monday: the Christmas Short Meditation- “Arise, shine!”

Tomorrow’s blog: “A landscape of joy”

Fear of change

Helpless to be empowered

Kyle Idleman begins Chapter 6 (“Helpless to Be Empowered”) of The End of Me with a story about the time he took his children and one of their friends kayaking in the creek running behind the Idleman house.  Kyle’s wife suggested they check Google Earth to map out a real-world bridge where she could pick them up.  Kyle’s male directionality gene took over and figured he’d be fine on his own.  To make a long story short, four hours late he had his son flag down a passing motorist for help.  Kyle made the call.

Pastor Idleman notes it’s ingrained in our culture that we can take care of things independently, as found in a “most beloved Bible verse” not actually found in the Bible: “God helps those who help themselves.”  A better explanation, Kyle asserts, is God actually helps those who can’t help themselves- those who stop in the middle of a crisis and ask for assistance.  Kyle writes:

“When we’re helpless and we know it, we’re open to receive the transforming help he wants to give us.  When we come to the end of ourselves, we find him there waiting to give us what we have been desperate for all along.”

In Luke 5:5-6, Jesus encounters a man at the pool of Bethesda who had been crippled for thirty-eight years.  Hopelessness was part of the scenery.  Then Jesus asks him an upside-down and loaded question: “Do you want to get well?”  In truth, the answer isn’t self-evident at all.  Jesus gets right to the invalid’s issue and ours as well.  Pastor Idleman frames the dilemma this way:

“You’ve been stuck in neutral for a while.  Do you really want something better?  Or have you laid down roots in a place of quiet desperation and low expectations?”

Today’s question: What action can you initiate to take up your mat and walk?

Tomorrow’s blog: “Fear of change”

 

 

Helpless to be empowered

The filled life

“Don’t settle for the full life- go after the filled life.”- Kyle Idleman

Still another said, “I just got married, so I can’t come.”- Luke 14:20

Kyle Idleman concludes Chapter 5 of The End of Me by discussing the third guest to decline the banquet invitation. Pastor Idleman quips that this guest might be the hardest to criticize.  A slap on the back and congratulations might seem to be more in order.

The message many love songs and romantic movies convey is simple: the right partner will fill your emptiness.  Kyle cautions that idea causes many people to enter a relationship or marriage with a huge and false expectation- that another human being can fulfill you for the rest of your life= “You complete me.”

When the honeymoon is over, feelings of doubt or discontent may set in.  It is in those moments of grappling with doubt that the thought of God flickers in our heads.  Kyle says it is Jesus inviting us to the banquet.  Pastor Idleman summarizes Jesus’ message in this parable:

“Stuff.  Activity.  Romance.  And there could be others.  What would be your most likely reason for walking away.  What takes up space in your life that’s meant for God?”

Over a century ago evangelist Dwight L. Moody commented on making room for the Holy Spirit:

“. . . I believe many a man is praying to God to fill him when he is full already with something else.  Before we pray that God will fill us, I believe we ought to pray that He would empty us.”

Today’s question (from Kyle): What takes up space in your life that’s meant for God?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Helpless to be empowered”

The filled life

A hedge against emptiness

Today Kyle Idleman discusses the second guest in Luke’s account of the Parable of the Great Banquet.  The second guest has purchased five yoke of oxen and wants to try them out.  His excuse reveals his true concern is with work, responsibility, and busyness- all a hedge against emptiness.

Pastor Idleman cites a June 2012 article in the New York Times titled “The Busy Trap.”  The article pointed out that the default answer to “How are you doing?” is “Busy!” “So busy!” or “Crazy busy!”  Busyness has become a source of pride phrased as pseudo-complaint.  However, as the article notes, busyness is our own undoing:

“Busyness serves as a kind of hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day. . . . [we’re] addicted to busyness and dread what [we] might have to face in its absence.”

Busyness, Kyle adds, is driven by the vacuum inside us.  Its symptoms are jam-packed calendars, distracted minds, and oversaturated lives.  The problem is that when the time arrives for the great banquet where God addresses our greatest needs, we can’t find any room for it.  We can’t afford to busy ourselves to places even more distant from the God who loves us.

Today’s question (from Kyle): In what ways has God shown up to fill your emptiness?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “The filled life”

A hedge against emptiness

The Great Banquet

Kyle Idleman continues Chapter 5 of The End of Me with an in-depth discussion of the Parable of the Great Banquet (Luke 14:16-24).  Pastor Idleman states it is important to understand that, in the Bible, a banquet often is a metaphor for the way God addresses the deepest needs of His people.  Jesus often used the image of a feast because it was a vivid and enticing image for His listeners.

Kyle observes that the best part of Jesus’ parables is deciphering who is who.  While some parables are simple and universal, others, like this parable in Luke, are pointed and specifically refer to certain people.  In most parables, God usually is identified as a king or master of an estate-definitely someone in a position of power.  But in this parable, Jesus is the servant.  The invitees are people of God who are too busy to attend.

The first guest has purchased a field and is eager to check it out.  Pastor Idleman states personal gain is the issue here.  Ironically, often people who believe they own property ultimately realize their property owns them.  The presumption of emptiness drives the need for consumer fulfillment.  Kyle summarizes:

“We hunt and we gather, and we can’t stop for fear of what a moment of reflection might say.”

As Mother Theresa would say, that moment of reflection might reveal a need for a living relationship with God.

Today’s question: What Scriptures help you fill your emptiness with God?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “A hedge against emptiness”

The Great Banquet

Question: full or filled?

Kyle Idleman continues Chapter 5 of The End of Me by exploring the difference between a jar being full or filled.  He draws on Luke’s account of Jesus at a Pharisee’s house, during which Jesus tells the Parable of the Great Banquet (Luke 14).

As the dinner commences and Jesus is being carefully watched, a man suffering from edema enters the room.  His body filled with excess fluid, the man’s health is an empty jar.  Of course, Jesus fills that jar and heals the man.  It should be a wonderful moment, but the Pharisees make no effort to question their preconceptions in the face of this miracle.  The question is: Are they full or filled?

Pastor Idleman explains the reason for the Pharisees’ static behavior.  They have no room.  They’re full to the brim with ideas so entrenched they are chiseled into their stony hearts.  The Pharisees have bought into Jesus being wrong.

Jesus makes a second attempt to get through the Pharisees’ ironclad defense by asking a really irritating question (v. 5): “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?”  Jesus knows the answer.  The Pharisees know the answer.  Then Jesus tells a parable in one final attempt to get through, even though He knows the parable is likely to go in one ear and out the other.

Today’s question: Is your jar full of preconceptions or does it need to be filled?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Parable of the Great Banquet”

Question: full or filled?

Our level of emptiness

“The measure of filling we receive is in direct proportion to our level of emptiness.”- Kyle Idleman

In Chapter 5 (“Empty to Be Filled”) of The End of  Me, Kyle Idleman begins by boldly stating that God loves to fill empty things, whether it’s a widow’s jar (2 Kings 4) or a measure of hope.  All jars begin with emptiness, receiving what is poured into them.  Pastor Idleman describes what it’s like to come to the place of emptiness:

“. . . I’m sure it wasn’t part of your plan.  Life has a way of pouring us out, and it has nothing to do with what we wanted or expected.  Life takes away . . . a home.  A job. . . . At some point, we’re left holding what feels like a whole lot of nothing, and we hold on to it with clenched fists.”

Our emotions are raw.  The worst emotional state of all is emptiness itself. But, Kyle asks, what if that emptiness signifies God has us right where He wants us?  Kyle asserts that when life takes away, God gives.  We’re in position for the ultimate blessing in life, “a close encounter with a loving heavenly Father who has in-depth, sweeping plans for blessing us in ways we never imagined.”

Yet, as Pastor Idleman will explore next, there is a major difference between a jar that is full and a jar that is filled.

Today’s question: How would you describe your state of emptiness following your vocation loss?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Question: full or filled?”

Our level of emptiness

The audience you choose

Kyle Idleman continues Chapter 4 of The End of Me by noting that, in God’s kingdom economy, much is determined by the audience you choose.  If your primary interest is in what other people think, your reward is their applause or attention.  In Matthew 6:1, Jesus says, “Be careful not to practice you righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.  If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”

Pastor Idleman explains the problem with this approach:

“The problem comes when we metabolize a habit into a philosophy and come to believe that our faith is defined by things we do with no reference to the heart.”

Conversely, Kyle states, coming to the end of me means you are through with the emptiness of that charade and only seek to praise God.  The reward is from God rather than people- and we are not consumed by appearances.  Kyle adds:

“God calls us to live one life and live it out in the open.  HIs mane for that is purity of heart, and his reward for that is rich and fulfilling blessing in life.”

While very instinct we have draws us to deeply cover our sin, giving the impression we have all the answers, the real me needs to experience the real life available in Christ.

Today’s question (from Kyle): In what ways are you sometimes inauthentic with others?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Our level of emptiness”

The audience you choose

False advertising

In Chapter 4 (“Authentic to Be Accepted”) of The End of Me, Kyle Idleman observes that no one like it when someone advertises one thing and delivers something entirely different- whether that is a business or an individual.  Businesses with false advertising claims are one thing, but when we apply this standard to ourselves, however, it’s another story.  Taking a look in the mirror and asking ourselves if we show our true selves to the world is much more difficult.

It’s hard to risk showing our true selves to the world, even considering the possibility people might be more drawn to us if they know some of our failings and struggles.  As Kyle notes, “fear is the enemy of transparency.”  Yet, it is when our inside and our outside match up that we’re pure in heart and where God wants us to be.

Pastor Idleman states the word purity was a buzz word in Jesus’ day.  Purity captured what religion was all about.  The problem was the Pharisees defined purity almost exclusively in terms of outward acts.  But Jesus put a new spin on the word- what Kyle refers to as “purity of heart over purity of decoration.”

A pure heart is unmixed (no bad ingredients) and sincere.  “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”- Matthew 5:8

Today’s question: What Bible verses help you establish “purity of heart over purity of decoration?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “The audience you choose”

False advertising

Where no one has gone before

Kyle Idleman concludes Chapter 3 of The End of Me with four ideas he has found helpful in enabling us to take ownership of our humility.

1.  To humble myself, I voluntarily confess sin.  Pastor Idleman states God promises to exalt those who, like the tax collector, voluntarily confess their sins.  If we confess because we’ve been caught or confronted, we may be humbled.  But we are not humbling ourselves.

2.  To humble myself, I give sacrificially and anonymously.  Kyle states sacrificial giving is a “real way of saying the kingdom of God is more important than me.”

3.  To humble myself, I treat others better than myself.  In today’s society, we’re taught to rely on ourselves and look out for numero uno.  The apostle Paul turns this philosophy on its ear in Philippians 2:3- “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves.”

4.  To humble myself, I ask for help.  Kyle emphasizes that every time he humbles himself and asks for help, that act opens a new door to some type of blessing.

Pastor Idleman concludes there is a vast frontier of strategies out there for humbling ourselves:

“Everywhere you look, every situation you’re in, is a laboratory for self-humbling, an opportunity to exalt Christ and put pride on the cross.  You can boldly- or humbly- go where no one has gone before.”

Today’s question: Which of Kyle’s four ideas resonate most with you?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “False advertising”

 

Where no one has gone before

Taking ownership of our own humility

“And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death- even death on a cross!”- Philippians 2:8

In the final section of Chapter 3 (The End of Me), Kyle Idleman focuses our attention on four words from the end of the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector: “those who humble themselves” (Luke 18:14).  While we think being humbled is a passive activity, Jesus speaks of a humbling that is active.  Active humbling involves taking ownership of our own humility.  It does not mean being humbled by someone or something.

Nik Wallenda walked across Niagara Falls on a high wire in 2012 and became the first man to walk across the Grand Canyon in 2013.  Nik is a strong Christian, and has a unique way of actively handling pride- spending hours cleaning up garbage left behind by his fans.  Nik says:

“Three hours of cleaning up debris is good for my soul.  Humility does not come naturally for me.  So if I have to force myself into situations that are humbling, so be it. . . . I do it . . . because it’s a way to keep from tripping.  As a follower of Jesus, I see Him washing the feet of others.  I do it because if I don’t serve others, I’ll be serving nothing but my ego.”

Next, Kyle offers four ideas for taking ownership of our own humility.

Today’s question: To this point, have you considered humbling passive or active?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Where no one has gone before”

 

Taking ownership of our own humility

Humblebrag

“Pride is best buddies with insecurity.”- Kyle Idleman

Kyle Idleman states in Chapter 3 of The End of Me that the key to understanding your inner Pharisee’s power is that your inner Pharisee is all about performance.  In contrast, one of the central themes of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is: God looks at the heart.  The heart is the true measure of what we are.  Performances are too easy to fake.

According to a new book on the subject, humblebrag is the practice of the art of false modesty- for example, a person posting about being exhausted (humble) after a wild and crazy vacation (brag).  The danger, especially in social media, is that others know only what you want them to know about you.

Just like the Pharisees, we can develop an “I” problem if anything other than Jesus becomes a foundation for our confidence.  It’s so easy to point to what we do, to stuff visible on the outside.  But Jesus is interested in who we are on the inside.  Only Jesus can see inside us, and there nothing can be faked.

Conversely, the tax collector shows us what “the end of me” looks like, as Kyle describes:

“He is broken, humbled by the majesty of God, and all he can do is plead for mercy and grace as he acknowledges the toll of sin in his life.”

Today’s question: What lessons in humility have you learned as a result of your vocation loss?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Taking ownership of our own humility”

Humblebrag

Pride is blinding

In Chapter 3 of The End of Me, Kyle Idleman concludes his description of six verbal symptoms of a prideful heart.

You may be a Pharisee if . . .

6.  you catch yourself saying, “It’s not me; it’s you.”  Although this seems like the mirror image of a famous breakup line, the reference here is to the ability of the Pharisee’s twenty-twenty vision to detect the flaws of others.  The Bible, however, points out that pride is blinding.  Kyle wryly observes:

“You can’t see the pride in your life because of . . . well, because of the pride in your life.”

Recently, while Kyle was driving his kids to school, his son asked: “Dad, why do you always talk to the other drivers?  You know they can’t hear you.”  Pastor Idleman quickly realized he was a Pharisee on wheels.  His car has big windows showing every car but his own- and a tiny little mirror that shows him.

Other Pharisee indicators include celebrating someone else’s failures, obsessing over the opinions of others, and being utterly convinced that your opinion is the only one that is correct.  Pride, the author stresses, is “the ultimate issue of the human condition”- the mother of all sin.  The Pharisee keeps getting in because we feed our internal Pharisee and we let him/her grow.

Next, Kyle takes a look at what makes our inner Pharisee so powerful.

Today’s question (From Kyle): In what ways have you caught yourself behaving like a Pharisee?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Humblebrag”

Pride is blinding

Define fair

Today Kyle Idleman continues his description of six verbal symptoms of a prideful heart (Chapter 3, The End of Me).

You may be a Pharisee if . . .

3.  you catch yourself saying, “It’s not fair.”  Pastor Idleman emphasizes there is a major question here: how do we objectively define fair?  A lot of things are going to seem unfair if we feel we are more deserving or entitled than those around us.

Kyle supplies the following clue: if you have a hard time celebrating with others in their successes or victories and if you lack gratitude for the good things in your life, you’re probably suffering from a case of pride.  And if you feel entitled and discontented, you have no reason to be thankful for anything.

4.  you catch yourself whispering, “Did you hear about . . .” Gossip tends to put others in their “proper” place and underscores how superior Pharisees are.  Gossip provides a convenient stepping stone on our quest to be king of the mountain.

5.  you catch yourself saying, “I don’t need anybody’s help.”  Pastor Idleman observes that the Pharisee in the parable never asks for God’s help.  He’s got everything under control and checked all the boxes off- fasting, tithing.  The Pharisee is convinced God couldn’t get along without him.  Pride blinds us from realizing our desperate need for God.  If your prayers are filled with complaint and self-justification, you may have a pride issue.

Today’s question (from Kyle): In what ways do you take ownership of your own humility?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Pride is blinding”

Define fair

You may be a Pharisee if . . .

In Chapter 3 of The End of Me, Kyle Idleman describes six verbal symptoms of a prideful heart.  The first two symptoms are discussed today.

You may be a Pharisee if . . .

1.  you catch yourself saying, “You aren’t going to talk like that to me!”  When pride takes over, we become defensive.  We’re unwilling to listen to criticism or correction.  It’s like undiplomatic immunity.  A prideful attitude also assumes a hierarchy in which we outrank the other person.

Pastor Idleman adds we might be thinking no one is offering us advice because they can’t find anything to criticize.  The truth may be closer to this: no one is offering us advice because they know it won’t go well if they try.

2.  you catch yourself saying, “I’m not going to be the one to apologize.”  Kyle cautions that the proud are magnetically attracted to conflict.  Solomon wrote in Proverbs 13:10: “Pride only leads to arguments.”  Squabbles can become epic because apologizing requires humility.

Forgiveness brings on the agony of defeat.  Proud people obsess about being undefeated in arguments and love to wait out the worst disagreements.  They may hold out for decades hoping everything blows over.  In the unlikely event a proud person apologizes, he/she will qualify that apology: “I’m sorry- but . . .”  And that type of apology never seems to work.

Today’s question: Have you ever dug in your heels and refused to apologize?  What was the result of your decision?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Define fair”

You may be a Pharisee if . . .

Your internal Pharisee

“God, I thank you that I am not like other people- robbers, evildoers, adulterers- or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I have.”- Luke 18:11-12

Kyle Idleman continues Chapter 3 of The End of Me with a discussion of The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14).  Pastor Idleman states people looked up to Pharisees because they were committed to Hebrew law and were likely to be upstanding, educated, and influential.  Although the Pharisees began with good intentions, eventually their faith became defined by an “unbearable, infinite collection of dos and don’ts, mostly don’ts.”

Luke clues us in that Jesus’ audience consisted of people  “who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else” (v.9).  Kyle observes that when we read such a description, we almost immediately assume Jesus is talking to someone else.  However, as soon as we assign negative descriptors to others, we become the very people Jesus is addressing.

The issue in this parable is pride versus humility.  Pastor Idleman explains:

“Fake humility expresses itself in a pride that is obvious to everyone but the speaker. . . . Ultimately our words betray us, no matter how much we guard them.”

In the next several blogs Kyle discusses six verbal symptoms of a prideful heart that indicate an internal Pharisee is about to flow out of our mouths.

Today’s question: How has your internal Pharisee been displayed following your vocation loss?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “You may be a Pharisee if . . .”

Your internal Pharisee

Spit first. Dig second.

“God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth.”- Matthew 5:5 (NLT)

Kyle Idleman opens Chapter 3 (“Humbled to Be Exalted”) of The End of Me with this important avalanche survival tip: Spit first.  Dig second.  Pastor Idleman points out that one of the biggest mistakes people make when buried by tons of snow in an avalanche is digging blindly to get out.

Once someone is covered with snow, it’s almost impossible to tell which direction is which.  Gravity, however, still applies.  The solution is to push the snow away from your face and spit.  The direction gravity takes your spit determines your position.  For example, if you spit and it lands on your face, you know you’re facing up. which is a good thing.

Pastor Idleman observes that when Jesus came on the scene as a rabbi, directional confusion was rampant.  In “the fullness of time” Jesus came to set the compass for all time.  Yet, to twenty-first century ears, Jesus’s third beatitude seems ironic.  To our culture, it looks more like CEOs, movie stars, and professional athletes have dibs on inheriting the earth.  Jesus countered this misperception in Luke 18:14 as well:

“For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

In order for this to happen, Kyle asserts that we need to deal with our inner Pharisee.

Today’s question: What Bible verses keep you headed in the right direction?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Your internal Pharisee”

Spit first. Dig second.

Blessing hidden in the shadows

“There’s nothing life can throw at us that God can’t use to draw us closer to him.”- Kyle Idleman

In Chapter 2 of The End of Me, Kyle Idleman observes that it’s human nature to do everything one can to stay away from suffering in the first place.  But we take things one step further when suffering inevitably hits.  We do everything possible to stay away from mourning.  And when we do catch ourselves mourning, we embrace avoidance behaviors to do all in our power to make mourning go away.

Pastor Idleman refers to this as a “grim quest to turn that frown upside down.”  However, Kyle explains, that frown won’t go away because gravity keeps tugging at the edges.  Rather than mourn, we shift our efforts to getting over it.  In fact, a man named Jeff Goldblatt founded Get Over It Day (March 9th).

Kyle counters that Jesus wants us to realize we can find incredible blessings hidden in the shadows- but that blessing only may be visible through the lens of our tears.  Through the unique focus of those tears, the intruder begins to look strangely like a guest.

When adversity hits, we can’t see anything bigger than our loss.  The truth is God more than fills that space, including spaces we didn’t know we had.  Kyle concludes:

“. . . those who follow Jesus find that their pain is not wasted.  There is a blessing that seems totally illogical.  It requires climbing to the bottom of the deepest pit, without a flashlight, venturing far into the darkness.  But the blessing is there, and it’s worth everything.”

Today’s question: What Scriptures have helped you find blessing hidden in the shadows?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Spit first.  Dig second.”

Blessing hidden in the shadows

Thanksliving

Luther High School South-Chicago, IL

“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”-Colossians 2:6-7

“Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow.  A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.”- Henry Ward Beecher

It’s Wednesday, November 27, 1968.  Bushel baskets and bags of food are lined up in front of the grand piano, wheeled into the gym from the choir/band room for Luther High School South’s Thanksgiving service.  South’s original electronic pipe organ recently had played its last note. A new Allen organ was on order.  Recent technological advances would enable the Allen to produce a decidedly authentic church pipe organ sound.  Amazingly- and a preposterous notion in 1968, thirty-three years later that same Allen organ would play a most memorable service of thanksgiving and celebration- for fifty years of Christian education at Luther South.

November 27, 1968 was a day for students and staff to give thanks for God’s past, present, and future provision.  A ministry downsizing or vocation loss, however, places severe strain on our resolve to give thanks at all times and in all circumstances.  Pastor Jeff Manion (The Land Between) encourages us to remember that God loves to provide exactly what we need at exactly the right moment.  Providing is what God does.  British pastor and author Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), once explained how, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are able to live a life of thanksliving in response to God’s blessings:

“I think that is a better thing than thanksgiving: thanksliving.  How is this to be done?  By a general cheerfulness of manner, by an obedience to the command of Him by whose mercy we live, by a perpetual, constant delighting of ourselves in the Lord, and by a submission of our desires to His will.”

God knows what we need and how He’ll provide it.  He has provided in the past, is sustaining us now, and will continue to do so.

“All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given,

The Son, and Him who reigns with them in highest heaven,

The one eternal God, whom earth and heaven adore,

For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5KqahRwNPo

 

 

Thanksliving

The blessing of God"s presence

“You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you.  Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.”- Matthew 5:4 (The Message)

In surprising ways, suffering makes room in our spirit for us to know and experience the blessing of God’s peace and presence.”- Kyle Idleman

Kyle Idleman continues his discussion of Matthew 5:4 in Chapter 2 of The End of Me by asserting that we can’t know God’s comfort without experiencing suffering.  When we mourn, then, we experience the blessing of God’s presence.  Pastor Idleman explains what we find in our suffering:

“There is a deep void that used to be filled with whatever we lost.  That could be stuff or even relationships- none of which are bad things.  But when it’s gone it leaves an aching cavity, and God is there to fill it up with himself.”

Coming to the end of Me enables you to experience the blessing of God’s presence as you never have before.  While wonderful things have been embraced and lost in life, Kyle encourages us that there is no embrace like God’s embrace.  God will not waste your pain, and He most certainly will not leave you alone.

Today’s question: As you mourn your ministry downsizing or vocation loss,  how have you experienced God’s blessing as never before?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: the Thanksgiving Short Meditation, “Thanksliving”

The blessing of God"s presence

Blessing comes from the inside

Everybody has that sudden, painful longing for yesterday, when they didn’t know how good they had it, just before the world fell in.”- Kyle Idleman

Kyle Idleman continues Chapter 2 of The End of Me with an example the Bible offers to help us figure out what Jesus means when He uses the word mourning.

We mourn the true circumstances of life.  Pastor Idleman defines these true circumstances as “dream busters that awaken us at the worst time.”  We don’t choose or invite them.  They simply kick down the door and barge in.  These dream busters are beyond our control- and they change everything.  Yet, when this happens, Jesus says we are blessed.

Jesus isn’t excluding the worst stuff, nor is He referring to little “character builder” moments.  Commentator William Barclay explains the weight of the word mourn:

“The Greek word for to mourn, used here, is the strongest word for mourning in the Greek language. . . . It is defined as the kind of grief which takes such a hold that it cannot be hidden.  It is not only the sorrow which brings an ache to the heart; it is the sorrow which brings unrestrainable tears to the eyes.”

Jesus’ message is that blessing comes from the inside.  Blessing is not dependent on what happens on the outside.  As Kyle concludes, “There is a blessing to be found only through the shedding of a certain number of tears.”

Today’s question: Following your vocation loss, how have you experienced that blessing comes from the inside?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “The blessing of God’s presence”

Blessing comes from the inside

Heartache and shattered dreams

In Chapter 2 of The End of Me, Kyle Idleman takes a closer look at the context for the Sermon on the Mount, noting the word Matthew uses for crowd really means “a large group of unidentified people.”  Over Kyle’s years as a public speaker, he has learned something about large groups of unidentified people: they are crammed with stories of heartache and shattered dreams.  Pastor Idleman quips even a convention of department-store Santas would serve as a gathering of sad stories.

Jesus spoke the words “blessed are those who mourn” (Matthew 5:4) in a first-century age of infant mortality, short life spans, hunger, disease, and national humiliation.  A significant percentage of Jesus’ audience on that mountain were “those who mourn.”  As Pastor Idleman adds, no one in the audience stepped forward to testify, “Yes sir!  Mourning rules!”

Kyle previously has stated that Jesus was speaking in paradoxes, but it seems like “blessed are those who mourn” crosses the line from paradox territory to Ludicrous-ville or Contradiction-land.  How can the sad possibly be happy?

A nice start, Kyle offers, would be to come to an understanding of what Jesus is thinking when He uses the word mourn.  In the next blog Kyle discusses mourning the true circumstances of life, defined as “dream busters that awaken us at the worst time.”

Today’s question: What Bible verses bring you the greatest comfort following your vocation loss?  Please share.

Coming Monday:  the Thanksgiving Short Meditation, “Thanksliving”

Tomorrow’s blog: “Blessing comes from the inside”

Heartache and shattered dreams

Living the dream

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”- Matthew 5:4

“The end of me often comes when my dreams come to an end.”- Kyle Idleman

Kyle Idleman begins Chapter 2 (“Mourn to Be Happy”) of The End of Me by remarking that toward the top of his list of least favorite things is waking up in the middle of a fantastic dream.  “But,” Kyle observes, “it seems a law of life that if you’re in the middle of an awesome dream, something will wake you up.”

Pastor Idleman states we’ve all had times when life was on cruise control.  Then adversity blindsided us and the ride got rough.  Kyle explains:

“You were living the dream, and then life was shaking you awake.  So intrusive.  To come awake is to lose something- money, health, work, innocence, some special someone.  If you’re going to live, you’re going to lose.  You will come to the end of yourself.  You might as well wake up to the fact.”

You’ve gone from dreaming to mourning.  But what if, Pastor Idleman asks, you could reverse that equation so that you would wake up from a nightmare to a dream, and mourning could lead to blessing.  Kyle encourages us:

“In the midst of loss and deep disappointment, when it feels like we are coming to the end of ourselves, he [Jesus] turns the page and shows us a new story of hope and redemption.”

Today’s question: What is your response to Kyle’s statement that we must wake up to the fact that we will come to the end of ourselves?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Heartache and shattered dreams”

Living the dream

Flaws are openings

“And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.”- Jeremiah 18:4

Kyle Idleman concludes Chapter 1 of The End of Me with the encouragement that God loves to make the broken beautiful.  William MacDonald (Lord, Break Me) points out that broken things lose their value in the physical world.  However, the reverse is true in the spiritual world.  Broken things are precious, revealing God’s beauty and power.  Flaws are openings (italics author’s).

Pastor Idleman loves Jeremiah’s beautiful image of God sitting at the potter’s wheel and refusing to toss a flawed piece of pottery.  One piece of clay has endless possibilities.  Kintsugi is a ceramic restoration process developed in Japan in the 1500s.  In the process of sealing the broken ceramic pieces together, the cracks are highlighted and traced over in gold.  They are not hidden.

More often than not, the restored Kintsugi pottery turns out to be more valuable than the original, unbroken piece.  The question for us is whether or not we are willing to let our cracks show.  Kyle concludes:

“It’s only after we’ve been made whole that we are ready to fulfill our purpose and be used by God.  That’s the inside-out way of Jesus- in you, then through you.”

Today’s question: How has God’s beauty and power been revealed through your brokenness?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Living the dream”

Flaws are openings

Embrace the paradox

In Chapter 1 of The End of Me, Kyle Idleman asserts the plain truth is “as much as we fight it, we long for the freedom to admit we’re broken.”  We don’t, however, consciously realize our need to do it.  While that lack of realization is true for each of us, it’s most certainly true for those people who least realize it.

Sociologist Brene Brown writes that all of us are one step away from being one of “those people”:

“. . . ‘those people’- the ones we don’t trust, the ones we pity, the ones we don’t let our children play with, the ones bad things happen to, the ones we don’t want living next door.”

Pastor Idleman adds that most of us know deep down we’ve got a lot of pieces that never seem to get mended, yet we go to great lengths to avoid honestly embracing of our condition.  He states we’ve become the masters of illusion, experts at covering pain, and partakers of loneliness.

In our culture, brokenness is a  hard sell.  Few, if any, people would pay to attend a seminar helping them to experience brokenness.  Kyle concludes:

“Brokenness . . . is, however, the one hope Jesus holds out for us, the inside-out, upside-down way that is somehow the only path that ultimately is right side up.  Embrace the paradox: brokenness is the way to wholeness.”

Today’s question: How have you been able to embrace the paradox that brokenness is the way to wholeness?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Flaws are openings”

 

Embrace the paradox

A trick question

“It’s not a question of being broken; it’s a question of brokenness.”- Kyle Idleman

Kyle Idleman continues his discuss of “A Sinful Woman Forgiven” (Luke 7:36-50) with what he considers to be the real question we should struggle with after reading Luke’s account: Who do you want to be most like, Simon or the sinful woman?

It’s a trick question.  Pastor Idleman states that most of us, especially those who have been Christians for a long time, want to be both.  Phrased differently, we want to be made whole without having to be broken (author’s emphasis).  We want to learn our lesson sans significant sacrifice.  There’s only one problem with that strategy- all of us are broken.

In Luke 7, it’s painfully obvious the woman is broken.  But what about Simon?  Kyle states Simon had memorized the entire Old Testament by age fifteen and could recite nearly three hundred Messianic prophecies.  Yet he treats Jesus as an unwanted dinner guest.

Simon isn’t just broken, he is really broken.  Pastor Idleman defines “really broken” as “not knowing you’re broken.”  Romans 3:23 tells us in no uncertain terms, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  The real question, Kyle notes, is whether or not we can own up to it.

Today’s question: Following your ministry downsizing or vocation loss, how have you avoided the temptation to find the easy way out?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Embrace the paradox”

A trick question

Beautifully broken

“The funny thing about tears is that when they fill our eyes, that’s when we see most clearly.”- Kyle Idleman

In Chapter 1 of The End of Me, Kyle Idleman continues his discussion of “the poor in spirit” with a commentary on Luke’s account of Jesus eating dinner at the home of Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50).  Although Simon knew the protocol for this kind of evening, he deliberately made no effort to follow it- and all his guests knew it.  Simon’s arrogance was blatant.

When the sinful woman crashed the party, Pastor Idleman emphasizes, all she sees is Jesus seeing her.  The woman is fully aware of her brokenness.  But Jesus sees something else- the woman is beautifully broken.  Jesus treats her as treasure, not trash.  The woman is undone- she has come to the end of herself.

Because the love of Jesus is real, the woman’s tears become the cleansing water Simon should have supplied- and her hair becomes the towel.  At the end of Luke’s account, Jesus has a rebuke for Simon and a word of blessing and redemption for the woman.  Kyle summarizes:

“With these words, Jesus has enacted the beatitude ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit.’  He has blessed the poorest spirit imaginable and rebuked the gaudiest, richest, most arrogant.”

Today’s question: How does it feel to know that Jesus sees you as beautifully broken?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “A trick question”

Beautifully broken

An inside job

In Chapter 1 of The End of Me, Kyle Idleman initiates his discussion of the Sermon on the Mount.  Pastor Idleman states Jesus begins to introduce us to the great paradox of God’s kingdom: “at the end of me, I find real life in him.”

The new kingdom, Kyle adds, has new rules.  Many of those new rules are a reversal of the old ways.  In fact, some New Testament scholars call the Sermon on the Mount the “Great Reversal.”  Pastor Idleman explains that Jesus is looking beyond superficial surface change:

“Jesus doesn’t want to talk about tangible rules or laws. . . . Nothing about the Romans here.  All that is on the surface of life, and Jesus wants to go a little deeper to what’s inside us- what make the surface the way it is.  The kingdom of God begins as an inside job.”

When Jesus says the poor in spirit are blessed (Matthew 3:5), the primary emphasis is not money- although the word Jesus uses for “poor” translates to “destitute” or “bankrupt.”  And it’s human nature to think a blessed life is defined by plenty of money, not poverty.

Jesus reverses such thinking here.  God’s kingdom begins in you when you come to the end of Me and you have nothing to offer.  Kyle concludes:

“Jesus says the kingdom begins with taking inventory and coming up with zero.  We have nothing to offer, and that means we’re making progress.”

Today’s question: What deeper, inside changes have occurred following your vocation loss?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Beautifully broken”

An inside job

The poor in spirit

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”- Matthew 5:3

Kyle Idleman begins Chapter 1 (“Broken to Be Whole”) of The End of Me by describing a poor community in Paraguay literally located in a landfill.  More than 1500 tons of trash are dumped there every day.  Yet, this community is best known for having . . . an amazing orchestra!

A young professional musician, Favio Chavez, happened to visit the dump.  But Chavez heard not what was, but what could be.   Instruments were crafted out of recycled materials,  For example, a cello was created from an old oil drum and old cooking tools.  Tiny cans turned into a flute.

From the squalor, music emerged- the music of hope.  The orchestra now is known as the Landfill Harmonic.  Kyle notes that when he reads the Gospels, the Landfill Harmonic’s music seems to play on every page:

“Jesus left the throne room of heaven for the landfill slum of earth.  He gave up perfection for brokenness and pain.  And he said, ‘Strike up the band.’  He heard weeping and turned it into laughter.”

Although there was hopelessness all around Jesus, it’s hard for us to comprehend the totality of what Jesus does when He digs into the landfill of earth and finds the broken fragments of life.

Today’s question: What Scriptures fill your heart with the music of hope?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “An inside job”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJrSUHK9Luw

The poor in spirit