Have you ever had a million dollar idea, but not known what to do with it. Ten years ago, I thought I had that idea and started a dog leash company. “The Dingo”, was a multi-functional leash that did everything from tethering your dog in the back of your car to walking three dogs. You can find its remains online.
Back then, Google was pretty new, but still very effective. I searched something like, “make prototypes” and came up with about six results. Ten days later I had the first Dingo in my hand.
Deep in my heart there is another little factory with even faster turn around times. This one creates idols. It’s ability to shift the entire production operation in alignment with the newest desire of my heart or mind is unparalleled. One minute it is cranking out little bobble-headed idols fashioned to look like me with the word “pride” on its forehead, the next moment it is mass-producing idols that look exactly like you with the inscription, “Man’s approval”.
King David has one of these little factories in his heart as well. On one occasion it was willing to fire up in the middle of the night after one prolonged look at a woman bathing. We know the ramifications of that production order. Ours can be just as devastating.
Still, even after this major failure, David was committed to having nothing set before him other then God himself. He was a man desperately pursuing the heart of God. In Psalm 16:8 David writes, “I have set the LORD continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”
So what is that little factory in your heart producing? There are plenty of idols ready to be cast. Idols of body image, addiction, fame and even your family can all beckon you to fall to your knees in worship.
So how do you close down that little factory? I’m not sure you ever will this side of heaven, but here is what you can do. Pray this prayer; “God, make everything and every area of my life where you are not preeminent, a bitter taste in my mouth.” Yes, pray now and as often as possible for the next year and see what happens to your desire to create idols. May God only be set high and exalted in your life today!
Acceptable Legalism: Finding God in a Stop Sign
Psa. 119:47 I shall delight in Your commandments, Which I love.
Everyone knows that if the speed limit says 65mph, you are free to drive 72mph. 7mph over the speed limit is the magic number of what is acceptable without getting a ticket. In school zones that number is only 2.6mph.
This is what I thought until I just got my 2nd ticket in 30 days. Even though I knew I was breaking the law, I was still ticked. I was mad at the cop for doing his job, politicians for agreeing to egregious laws, kittens and the universe in general.
Over the next few days, God barraged me with messages and teachings about loving the law. Ridiculous! Who loves the law?
The answer to that question was King David. When I came across Ps. 119:47, and especially the bit about David loving the law, I was immediately intrigued. I get following the law because God told me to, but loving the law is totally different.
David loved the law because he realized that laws are a representation of their author. The more you understand a law and its nuance the more you understand the one who created that law. For David, every law he followed became an opportunity to know and love God in a deeper way.
This is actually a form of acceptable legalism. It is a legalism allowed to us by grace. Grace is what gives us the opportunity to follow the law for loves sake. Without grace, you could not choose to follow the law strictly for loves sake. Without grace, law following is a requirement.
How stringently do you follow the law? Do you speed, show up to work late, cheat on taxes or walk when the light is red? Perhaps you are an ardent rule follower. The question to you is why? Is it for the sake of the commandment, self-righteousness or for the love of God!
Here’s a challenge. This week pursue a Davidic type of intimacy by trying to obey every law stringently. Do it because you want to know God. Yes, you are free from the law of death, but this type of legalism leads to life. As believers we need to be careful that our freedom in Christ does not keep us from knowing God.
1Pet. 2:13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority.
God Is Not Mad At You
When I tell Christians this, they often balk. Few believers know how to live their lives in the freedom of Christ-completed work. Instead these believers live lives in a three-step dance of sin, guilt and confession; the second step being unnecessary as guilt is a useless commodity for believers in the kingdom of God.
This process of sin, guilt and confession is what causes some Christians to hate sin for the wrong reason. Think about it. Why do you hate sin? If you are like me in the past, you’ve hated sin more for the way it made you feel or the results of your sin then hating sin itself. Yes, we need to hate the consequences of sin, but the primary reason for hating sin is because sin is everything God is not and when we sin we break God’s heart. For God, lack of condemnation towards you and a broken heart can co-exist.
Thus, the amount you hate sin is tied into how much you experience love for and from God. When you love God, you no longer avoid sin because of the law or fear. Instead, you avoid sin, because you want to bring pleasure to the Father. Your righteousness becomes a love language. This is why freedom from sin is found in the place you least expect it. Freedom from sin comes from focusing on your love relationship with God rather then creating a fail-safe program for sin management.
Since the Devil knows this, he will continue to convince Christians that God is mad at them. Why? The reason is that we tend to avoid people who are angry with us. When we avoid God, we are also avoiding his love and acceptance.
Here’s the truth, God’s not mad at you. Go in peace.
Rom. 5:9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
Rom. 8:1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Does Your Marriage Matter
Almost twenty-three years ago, my friend Torry pulled me out of a Tijuana gutter. It would be the last gutter I would lay in. The next day was the first in a continuing two-decade journey into my sobriety. I spent that final night of intoxication sleeping at Torry’s parents, a place I had been inebriated many times before.
Even as a self-focused, addicted teen, I knew something was different about Dick and Connie’s place. Whenever there, my life seemed to find more ballast. There was just something about the spirit of their home. There was something special about them together.
More then anything, when I was there, I knew I was accepted. Conversations were never started with an ulterior motive. They never preached at me. Instead, they just invited me into their home.
Don’t get me wrong. It was obvious they loved Jesus. Dick was an oak of a man, firmly rooted in the word of God, Connie always busy doing some Bible Study Fellowship lesson while worship music resounded from the kitchen like the continual muzak at TJ Maxx.
Looking back, I can see that their marriage, their absolute way of being together, acted as a megaphone to me of what a marriage could look like in a culture short on commitment and love. I was being discipled without knowing it.
I remember Dick once saying that he disliked the passage about not being married once getting to heaven—unable to imagine an eternity away from Connie’s side. They were the bible’s epitome of one flesh.
Last week I got a text telling me that Connie had lost her battle with cancer. The first thing I did was think, “What is Dick going to do?” Then I thought about my own wife, knowing that this day would eventually come to our shores as well.
What I realized is that like Dick and Connie, Karie and my marriage has an opportunity. We have an opportunity to present to our girls, their friends and this world, what a marriage that matters looks like—marriages that reach beyond their own happiness. Dick and Connie had that kind of marriage and because of it, mine is eternally grateful.
Dodgeball and Common Grace: A parent’s shot a long devotion
I got a call from Lily’s kindergarten teacher asking if I would come in and volunteer at lunchtime as a playground dad. Someone else could not make it and they needed a replacement. It was early September and the year had just begun. I agreed and showed up the following Friday for duty.
Somehow, that one afternoon has turned into four years of Friday lunches, countless dodge ball games and amazing opportunities to let kids know they matter.
More then anything, it has been a chance to be available—available to my daughter, available to her friends. I never show up with an agenda and I don’t really consider it ministry. It is just life. It is my daughter’s life, and I get to be a part of it in a way that matters to her.
About halfway through my first year of doing this, I prayed a prayer that meant as much to me as any prayer I have ever prayed, “God, I pray that you would allow me to see these kids graduate high school.” I was asking God if I could be a weekly campus presence until Lily’s final week of her senior year in 2020. It was a big prayer with big consequences. It was a commitment to stay put and not seek the next big opportunity.
At this point, I don’t know what it would take for me to break that commitment. Cancer maybe? It would most definitely not be for a better paying job or career advancement. I just don’t really care about all that. The cost is too high, those fourth graders too precious. I know them now, their struggles, their joys, their hopes.
There have been no miracles yet that I know of. No one has given his or her life to Christ as a result of me being there. Rather, it is just common grace in ordinary events and an opportunity at long devotion in a single direction.
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“Oh no, oh no!” were the words I heard, along with a scream, as I woke up out of a dead sleep. I opened my eyes to find us heading toward a massive semi-trailer truck at 65 mph. It was the last day of our yearly snowboard pilgrimage to Mammoth Mountain, in California. My wife, Karie, was driving, and we were headed home. We were on HWY 395, about 20 minutes outside of Bishop, and just a few miles from the spot where you can often see herds of elk.
Startled by my wife’s scream, I awoke as my heart raced from a virtual 0 to 60. In front of us loomed a Mack truck. There was nothing I could do. In that moment, Karie had to make a decision that our family’s lives depended on. She had two options. She could slam on the brakes and hope to weave back in behind the truck that was to our right, praying that he would not also brake; or she could hit the gas…
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