Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
Even when the ashes are washed away, the cross sinks deep into our hearts. There it finds a home to cleanse us from the inside, to create within us a new and right spirit. Made whole through Christ, we have purity of heart by faith.
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,
Mark 1:14-15 Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."
As we enter the season of Lent today, we hear the hard words of Jesus calling us to repentance. C.S. Lewis teaches us that repentance involves surrender, laying down our arms, saying we're sorry, and Jesus teaches us that, following repentance, we will find good news, which he invites us to believe.
Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,
Psalm 86:1-7
This is a psalm of David, and he is surrounded by enemies attacking him. The psalms provide a clinic on how to face life when it seems out of control. David feels solitary, defenseless. He responds by reminding himself over and over who God is. He most often calls God "Lord," the Hebrew word for adonai, meaning "sovereign." David is drilling his own heart to remember that God is in control. Discern how many of your most difficult emotions, bad attitudes, and foolish actions come from losing your grip, at that moment, on who God is.
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,
Luke 22:27
When the disciples have an argument about which among them was to be regarded as the greatest, Jesus gives a little illustration about a dinner, and asks them, "Who is greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves?" He answers His own question: "Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as one who serves (Luke 22:27). It is easy to think that, here, Jesus is redefining greatness; that to be really great, we need to "become as on who serves." So we Christians start trying to be great, but through obvious acts of service, rather than by trying to get to the front. It's like when you were at camp, and everyone raced for the back of the line, knowing that the counselors would say that "the last shall be first and the first shall be last." Though the route is different, it's still a race to the front.
So how can we be great if our only way there is cut off? It seems like a cruel trick: servanthood is the way to greatness, but servanthood, true, honest, and pure servanthood, turns out to be impossible. Jesus said that the one who reclines at table is greater, and He's right! And here's the kicker: I want to recline at table! I know the right answer is to serve, but sitting at the table is so much better. Left to my own devices, I don't really want to serve - I want to be served.
Thankfully, Jesus isn't giving us a new route to greatness. He's showing us that we're not great. The great have no need for a Savior, and we are in desperate need. It was on the cross, because of our inability to be great, that the Great One, Christ Jesus, was stripped of His greatness. It is in our recognition of our lack of greatness that we can clearly see the greatness of Christ, manifest in that least great of events, a public execution. The less great we find ourselves, the greater we find His gift.
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,
Matthew 22:10
A king throws a wedding banquet for his son. He sends out the wedding invitations, probably to the best and brightest. When he sends his servants out to pick up the people he's invited, they say they don't want to come! He tells the invited guests how great the party is going to be, but they make fun of it. Some of the guests even mistreat and kill the messengers! Talk about not wanting to go to a party! The king decided that he wants a full house at the wedding party, so he sends his servants into the streets to bring in whoever they can find.
This is a great story for us. More than just being about a people who had the opportunity to accept the message of Jesus and didn't, it's about the next group of people...the ones who get the next opportunity. The original wedding guests were the sort of people who get to go to the real Hollywood power weddings. It's as if when Brad Pitt and angeline Jolie got married, no one on their guest list had accepted their invitation. Imagine if Brangelina announced their wedding, and then ended up inviting hundreds of people just off the street. I don't know what street it would have been, maybe in California or in France or in Rwanda. Anyway, that would be quite the situation, wouldn't it? Hundreds of Joe Schmoes going to the wedding of celebrities?
And we like stories like this, right? This is good news for you and me. If the A-listers don't get to go, maybe our name will eventually come up. This is the gospel: Jesus didn't come for the good, fancy people who are self-sufficient, successful, and glamorous in their own eyes. He came for the needy, the weak, the unpolished. The gospel, in other words, is for the rest of us - the street people who live our lives in perpetual fear that we'll never make it, that we'll never be invited. The gospel is for us, and Jesus is saying that we're the ones who end up inside the wedding feast.
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,
1 Peter 1:3-5
Can you believe the goodness of the good news? Can you believe that we're promised an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading? Never were three more beautiful words spoken. And the fact that Peter was the one who wrote them amazes me. Peter, who denied any relationship to Christ whatsoever while his innocent friend was being tortured. Peter may have been in the best position ever to believe that his inheritance had perished, been defiled, or faded. He must have been sure of it! It is only those who are convinced of their own badness who can perceive the incredible goodness of the good news.
Peter follows up these words with: "In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials" (v. 6). He knows what that week between Jesus' resurrection and Jesus' appearing was like. It was full of suffering. He spent the whole time, I guarantee you, going over and over those three denials in his mind. :I do not know the man! How could I have said that! I don't believe that...what was I thinking?" He must have been sure that Jesus would show up holding the recording. Peter is imagining an eternity spent separated from this man he denied. And yet, wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, when Jesus walks into the room that night after He's resurrected, He doesn't even mention it! It's as if Peter's inheritance is...could it be? Imperishable? Undefiled? Unfading? Peter might have started putting these words together in his head that very night.
We are like Peter. We are sure that our relationship with Christ has perished. That it has become defiled. That it has faded. And if our relationship with Christ is based on our performance, we'd be right. Thankfully for us, our relationship with Christ is based on His performance, His fidelity, and His love. Because His love for us is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, so is our connection to Him.
Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,
Psalm 42:5
One of the greatest documentaries of the last several years is Murderball, the story of the United States quad rugby team, a Paralympic team of quadriplegics. A fascinating thing to watch in the film is the interplay between physical disability and mental attitude. As you might imagine, the quadriplegics who play murderball (quad rugby's nickname) are some of the most competitive and independent spirits in the world. They would kill themselves before letting anyone take pity on them. One of the players, Mark Zupan, tries to start physical altercations so that he can taunt people for not wanting to hit a wheelchair-bound man. He is trying to call attention to his self-sufficiency and strength in the face of his obvious weakness.
Of course, it's overcompensation. Feelings of weakness (the film begins with a painfully long scene of Zupan simply getting dressed) lead to professions of strength. The truth is, though, that these quadriplegics are suffering - you can see it in their faces. They live their lives in denial of it, in much the same way that we deny much of our suffering. Do we, knowing that Christ came to and for sufferers, wear the thorns in our flesh as badges of honor? It doesn't seem like it. We are more like quad rugby players, keeping our need deep beneath our surface, in the hope that Jesus won't have to come for us at all.
In a profound sense, we are just like Mark Zupan. We're spoiling for a fight. We want to be able to stand before Jesus and say, "Lord, You know we're not perfect! Look, we've suffered. Our family is broken, our self-esteem is low, we're confined to a wheelchair. It was a long, tough road, and we're a little woozy. But the important thing is, here we are." We want to think we made it ourselves. The truth is, we can't. We need Jesus.
Perhaps your life has made you aware that you're not making it. Today, remember that, though you may not be okay, Jesus gave His all for you and you are deeply loved.
-- Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,