THE UPRISING

I can think of no better setting for a sighting of You than a full surrender of me

Just as I am

I am Yours God.

I am Yours in the uncharted whatever.

Do what You will.

Do what You can.

Do stuff with & through me

out there in the uncharted whatever.

Up. Thinking about the kingdom. And my role in it.
Up. Suiting up. Settling accounts on my knees & needs.
Up. Suiting up. Riding out. Committing treachery against all my fears & lack. Committing treason against all my doubts & idols.
Up. Suited up. Riding out. Wrestling down doublemindeness & divided loyalty & discipline. Committing myself to a cause much bigger than I. One influencing both acts of hiddeness & acts of chivelry across the broad landscape & tight into the smallest corners within & without in my corner of the world. Up. Thinking about the King of this kingdom. And my place both in Him & at His side. Up. Thinking. Suiting up. Riding out.

 

More towels - Less titles

 

-invade all of my habits - each and every one-

Tears of a rapist    

I'd not seen him before. No one at Poplar would know him. He didn't look up. He just kept staring into the bag of groceries I'd just given him. He just kept looking down.

"My life didn't used to be like this... where did it go wrong..."  he said.
"There's something else....I've done something awful... I'm so ashamed..."    A story of wrong choices, wrong friends, a drinking spree getting out of control, arrest, DNA swabs, cells & a rape charge has me sighing at the brokeness of what I was hearing.

The story told - he looks up into my face looking for rejection. I say nothing...

"My life didn't used to be like this... where did it go wrong..." I say nothing...

He half composes himself - "I'm in court next week... I'm scared..." I put my hand on his shoulder. "I'm sure you know if you are guilty" His shoulders shake as deep sobs interrupt the moment.

I look into his eye's "What do you want me to pray?"

Through his sobs he barely whispers "that justice will be done..."

Before there was the 'all this' You called me to & set me into & keep in missional motion...  Before there was the  'this & that',  & all the ministrations & ministries which fill the bulk &  span of my day's day...

Before there was an office, & a building, & a budget, & a pushing into the city with a mandate, & a pushing into men's hearts with a swab or a sword. Before all of this, there was You & I. And when all 'this' passes away, there will still be You & I. So here now, in the middle of the 'all this' that You started & keep going by grace; here I sit low to do nothing more than to seek & see You. Because for me it has never really been all about the 'what', but the 'Who with'.   So... pardon my stare here in the wee hours of pre-day's start. And pardon my repetitive glances, down in the thick of this day's middles. And pardon my sins, too. To the One of whom I am cultivating an addiction, pardon the stalking tendencies I intend to display as I disentangle myself from the affairs of this life so that I may have  a well tangled affair with You... and You alone.

The N.T. story God is writing,

conceived in great love,

it all begins with the finished work of Christ.

All of it starts there.

But from there He also integrates the ongoing work of Christ. And this, this requires an individual's active partnership with what God desires to do not just for us, but also through us. Make no mistake, Christianity is more than just a loving acknowledgment of God's grace & what Christ has already done for us. It is also an active participation in God's discipleship & what He wants to do in & with us. This is the road upon which the best love, mystery, action & adventure plots are carried to their "well done", expected & eternal good, good end.

Accept the extrordinay gift of grace, but do not become its junkie. If you do, it will cause you to both cringe at & reject all the conditions God has lovingly placed between you & the consistent experience of His promises of real life & freedom.

You know you're a grace- junkie when you encounter the word 'if' in one of God's promises, & selective blindness occurs.  

You know you're a grace-junkie if you have created doctrines that require no personal responsibility or personal holiness.

You know you are a grace-junkie if your image of God is a grandfatherly old man whose chief aim in life is to make you happy & as general rule, does not challenge you or discipline you.

You know you're a grace-junkie if you can not tolerate & consider false doctrine anything that smacks of God being a judge & you being held accountable for both your actions & inactions.

You know you're a grace-junkie when the word 'Obey' kinda freaks you out.

You know you're a grace-junkie when the concept of carrying your cross & denying yourself daily are concepts that strike you as either imbalanced or too outdated for modern Christianity.

You know you're a grace junkie when your main diet of sermons are those that talk up God's love for you, but downplay God's rule over you.

You know you're a grace-junkie when... Add your own finish in the comment section of this post.

I'm not courting God like a ravished lover - No.    Mine is a much messier quest.  I'm courting Him like a cocaine addict  - counting worthless & selling off anything that stands between having what I seek....

Scouring the deep recesses of all my comfort zones for any remnant of change that may have slipped between the cushions...  every penny counts & everything that is mine is handed over that I might apprehend Him, know Him, walk in the pleasure of His presence, & in His resurrection life... Even if it means fellowshipping with suffering. Here, anchored in the sweat & snot & tears & shakes of a morning 'episode' .. my longing overtakes my logic & reason. I curse my brokenness, swear through a vow, & hand over all my gods & goods for another sight of His face, his heart, His soul... Him.  I'm not courting God like a ravished lover -  This morning mine is a much, much messier quest -  I court Him like a cocaine addict. 

 

You

can't

get

more

of

God

But you can give God more of you. 

 

 

 

The 1st commandment is not all about God. It's all about you & God. It expresses that His most prized goal & jewel is holding highest place in your heart. It confessed that God's greatest treasure... is you. It says to all, that a mutually loving relationship is the thing God most desires most, & the place where all things obedience & Christ-likeness are conceived.  The 1st command could have easily been, "Thou shalt obey the Lord your God". Instead God carefully crafted the sentence, "Thou shalt love the Lord Your God". Knowing full well that if God had your loving, yielded, whole heart, greater & greater obediences would be its ever bearing fruit, & the story of God's grace & your adventures in faith would be written for all the world to see.   The 1st commandment is not all about God. It's all about you & God. It comes before any acts of obedience or service in missions. It even comes before "Thou shalt love others..." A full throttle relationship between you & God comes before all else. And if you engage it, it will remain when all else passes away - That's how highly He values & treasures you.

You might be a judgement-junkie if...

When you hear sermons about the unconditional love of God, you cringe.

When you hear someone talking to someone else about how much God loves them, & you immediatly want to go into a diatribe about God's anger if they don't submit & obey all God's commands, you might be a judgment-junkie.

If every time you hear someone talk about the mercy or grace of God, you feel the abrupt need to enter the conversation & turn it into a talk all about holiness, you might be a judgment-junkie.

If you think the sentence "God loves you." is always an unfinished or incomplete sentence, you might be a judgement-junkie.

If you think the words mercy or compassion are synonyms for weak & compromising, you might be a judgment-junkie.

If  you think the phrase "God loves you because He loves you", is a sentence in desperate need of a comma, & that it should always end by covering what God requires of you, you might be a judgement-junkie.

If you are often accused of being harsh & unloving, but usually find a way to blame those accusing you as either blind, unspiritual, or simply not as devoted to God as you, you might be a judgment-junkie.

If you think God wants to fear-monger & intimidate people into submission, you might be a judgment-junkie.

If the phrase "God demands obedience", seems like a perfectly good way to portray God, but "God loves you" doesn't, you might be a judgment-junkie. 

If you secretly think that 'kindness & gentleness' should not be listed among the fruits of the spirit, & you consider them superflous in communicating correction, you might be a judgment-junkie.

When you are easily irritated by people who don't hear you when you are calling them names & being condescending while communicating a 'truth' about right living, you might be a judgment-junkie.

 

 

 

"As we behold Him, we become like Him..." -Apostle Paul

Now

we

all

may

come

up

the

mountain

& have conversation there

beyond the thunderings & smoke,

there in the manifest presence of God.

Though few now make the journey,

preferring instead to send word & communique up from the distant foothills below.

Effective discipleship doesn't start with principles, it starts 1st with position. It has always been easier to talk amongst ourselves about God, easier to gather information about God, than to actually come up close, go before God, & there in conversation & communion... learn to dwell; leaving behind an information-junkie driven long-distance discipleship, & learning to dwell there where information is turned into the revelation which empowers true & lasting transformation. May God cultivate in us an addiction to His person & presence, & a craving for the closeness where sights & secrets & stories are shared & intertwined; where character is forged from the answered dare to face-seek & come near & tremble at His word. 

"As we behold Him, we become like Him..." -Apostle Paul

He came into that skanky bar I hang out in, sat next to me, & bought me a drink. Holy & clean, everyone could see he did not belong there. What we couldn't see is that neither did anyone else. This was the news he came to bring. Kept it hidden inside his inside pocket. Brought it out only after we'd talked awhile. Well, I talked. He just listened. Listened like my mother, leaning over my crib,  just to listen to me breathe. He seemed that cleanly fascinated with my story...& with me.  He came into that skanky bar I hung out in, sat beside me, & shared His time with me.  Shared His story with me. Shared his Life with me. Made me an offer I could not refuse. 

it's hard not to Holy
even while i'm being broken open... HOly.
even as confidence dissipates like vapor... HOLy
even as God's plans stretch beyond my means... HOLY
in my weakness & worship, 
fault & funk & fragrance all together say... HOLY!
it's my cuss & my chorus
& currently it's my unspeakable joy.

 

The more rooms you let Him into in you,

the more rooms He'll invite you into in Him.

 
And now comes the season of iron sharpening iron as we shoulder close to know God's heart, bear His likeness, & live out His message. In childlike wonder, engaging in the pleasures of this life, we drink deep from the people, places, & things that make this world provocatively beautiful. We live full.  We play hard.  We leisure well.  We pray hard.  We laugh deep - we kingdom eunichs. We, Christ-apprentices, who take on the yoke, take up our cross, & put on the mantle of serving others as we simultaneously engage every "Follow Me" discipline that will help in our swift pursuit of the holiness & wholeheartedness which enables us to see beyond the headlines & into the details of God.  We'll live wide & deep in the joys of earth but remain willingly severed from that which would distract us from companioning the King & fulfilling His earthly desires.  He alone is now our deepest delight.

Sneakers, smoke, & strong whiskey.

-another day to lock gaze in God-wonder & a come nearer still.  my heart leans hard right into it now.  right into the wild, base, breathtaking simplicity of companioning a God both mystical & missional. 

inside me: candles & altars.  liturgy & incense-smoke. polyphonic chants & primal shouts.   outside: dirty gym-shoes & clean justice. show-&-tell & disciplemaking & battlescars to boot. yeah, risk-taking & standing tippy-toed to reach into & serve out with age-to-come gifts & power. family & friends & confidants & counselors all in between the lines.  

mistakes & outakes & whisky-strong jagged-edged worship all underneath the landscape - like lava  spilling out over the low & high ledges, making new ground while changing the contours of the old.  yeah, incense burning, sneakers going on, whisky-strong worship going up, & me headed into another day to lock gaze in God-wonder & a mad mission to come nearer still while going further out-

Many of us have been seeking to bless our lives with God’s help without first seeking to lose our lives for God’s sake. Perhaps that's why many of us are experiencing God's blessings, but few of us are experiencing God's Life.

Activity & productivity are not one in the same.

Most of us want to skip over the disciplines & go right to the results & rewards of those disciplines. We want to have powerful prayer lives, but also want to skip over establishing prayer habits. We want renewed minds, but want to skip over the habit of carving out regular time for meditation & study. We want that land of milk & honey, but don't want to trek through any form of wilderness to get to it. We want transformed lives, but want to avoid at all cost life-surrender & the tediousness of establishing
spiritual disciplines.  I think it's wisdom to look for the best approach, the best fit, & the right rhythm when it comes to applying spiritual disciplines to our lives. But even the most perfect fit won't be void of times when it meets resistance & you'd rather do anything else but spiritual disciplines... And yet, despite contrary feelings, you must. That's the nature of discipline; that when it meets resistance it breaks it down & breaks through it by continuing to press in. Any good trainer will tell you that learning to press through resistance is part of the training. I's during times of resistance that we are actually becoming strongest. but if we reject the hard parts of training we will never be fully trained.  Regarding spiritual discipline, we can not simply follow the path of least resistance. That's called meandering. It may hide under the guise of rejecting legalism or 'still looking for the perfect fit', but underneath, it's still just an "I don't want to & especially when I don't feel like it, so I'm not gonna'.  We have every right to have this posture, & God does not love us less when we do. but the issue is not God's love, it's the issue of fruitfulness, transformation, increase, effectiveness, & all else relating to your call to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth, the dwelling place for God.

On the outside, errands, starbucks, lease payment, parent, employee, a missed appointment, a quick hello.  

On the inside, vicious skirmishes & ambushes. Swords drawn - blood spilled. Hurling some aspect of my inflamed or inflated self onto that cross I drag everywhere I go.

Kill it, I say to God's Spirit in me. Crucify it, He does.   When I hurl it up onto that splintered, blood splattered beam, my part is over & His begins.  

On the outside, errands, starbucks, lease payment, parent, employee, & a quick goodbye.  On the inside, at red lights, eyes close & head hits the steering wheel in worship.   Messy, stilted, wordless pockets of worship at the red lights & stop signs, & in the starbucks addiction line. Gritty worship in the Fall winds - the cityscape ahead & my heart hurling itself ahead - head on into the oncoming come closer now of a hide & seek God.  

On the outside, I'm tapping out these aimless words like a pregnant soul needing to deliver. On the inside, warfare & worship... tenderness & grittyness... fasting & feasting.... jagged-edged worship.

Christian zealots often mistake their own zeal for the zeal of the Lord. This leads into many places & paces God's Spirit has not necessarily called them to. Many 'strange' fires & burnouts result. Zealots often inadvertently make zeal itself their guide, thus subverting the Holy Spirit's role in their life. Zeal certainly has an essential place. But zeal makes a bad God. Even if it's zeal for the things of God.

Zeal is a great catalyst, but a bad God. One leads to strange fires, flash fires, & spiritual burnout. The other, to holy fire, holy fruit, & a spiritual renewal that is sustainable. One leads to strain. The other, to rest.

I have a friend... who has been in the trenches with me, taken bullets for me, grabbed live grenades thrown my way, threw them a distance off, & resuscitated me when my breath failed.  I have a friend, who has scars from the battle we've shared, who has tattoos for the mission we've shared, who smells of the worship we've lived, & who speaks from a heart giving itself away.  Closer than a brother.  Better than many friends of old. I have a friend who has never been perfect, & has sometimes disappointed me, but has never once failed me. Closer than a brother. Yeah, we're 'come what may' that way. 

.  

 

   every six paces. ..  awe-shock, locked-gaze, love-struck, blood-stained, stuff-surrendering, imperfect, God-dependent, heart-pregnant gratitude. this is how i'll make my way home..

 

 

R   e   a   c   h   i   n   g        Q   u   i   e  t  

 T    o   d   a   y   '   s       M   i   l   e   s   t   o   n  e

Knee to cement,

head to dirt,

hand to sky,

hard to contain gratitude

right there in the narrow straights

between God, Goliath, Mission, & me.

Rather this adventure,

where fear & faith sometimes play the game of high speed chicken on this one lane narrow road

than the quiet of a

risk-free, low-yield life.

Yeah, knee to cement,

head to dirt,

hand to sky,

hard to contain, gratitude

right down here in the narrow straights.

 

Absolute Surrender is an act of war. It leads to the massacre of all little gods. And the morning alarm clock sounding off is a call to the field of battle. Sometimes the skirmish takes hours, sometimes minutes, sometimes seconds. The bodies of lessor gods strewn all around - there is where holy fire turns from flames to blazes. There is where & when the day begins. There is where Love has a strong shot at being how the next 24hours is done.

Much of your fruitfulness in the next season has already been predetermined by the quality of your relationship, discipline, & obedience 'with' God in this season. 

So stop blaming God for not being dependable. And stop calling some of your current failures a problem of faith. You can not fast & pray your way into the rewards promised solely through obedience. Your prayers of faith in the next season can not get you the rewards meant to come solely by obedience in this season.

"Be not deceived. For God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows, that will he reap."

Sow this "...Abide in me & let my word abide in you, then you shall ask what you will & it shall be done" -Jesus.

Ours is no religion of perfectionism which touts all else as false Christianity. No. Christianity is a religion of relationship. Relationship with a God who embraces both the strengths & weaknesses of individuals. Relationship with a God who teaches us both how to walk without stumbling & how to stumble without leaving. In essence, how to live dependent, transparent, humble lives with others & with a God who enables us to display His strengths as well as enabling us to make even our greatest weaknesses glorify Him.

The blessings that are promised for obedience to God can not be acquired through any other means except through obedience. Apart from obedience, they can not be acquired through prayer, through  

 fasting, through declaring nor proclaiming in faith-filled confession. They can only be acquired through obedience.  Do we fill our prayer time making requests for that which only obedience can release to us? Are we asking for that which is not rightfully ours to have?  If some of the blessings we desire are indeed in sync with us having met the covenant conditions, then by all means we should be heard praying both in faith & with fervency for them to be released to us.  But until then, perhaps our time is better spent first asking for the heart & grace to obey, rather than first asking for the rewards of the obediences we have not yet accomplished.

The love of God is unconditional - The covenent promises of God are not.      

             Grace & mercy are unconditionally ours for the asking...

                                  Intimacy with God is not.   

              Intimacy with God is not given by merely asking for it,

                         but also by intentionally cultivating it.

 

Before much more talk of Christ in your life,

much more talk of you in His Life.

Some things about Himself which God wants us most to find,

 He hides to be found only by those, ya know,

who count Him worthy of diligent seeking.

The line does not go... "Want & you shall find";

It goes... "Seek & you shall find".

Most of the time when the word fear is attached to a proverb, psalm, or commandment about God, it is not referring to terror or intimidation, or being really, really scared of Him. But instead, to reverence.

Fear: respect. reverence. honor. awe.

The fear of the Lord helps you consider your choices not just in the light of God's unconditional love & unfailing grace, but also in the light of what honors & dishonors Him. 

This kind of fear is a very specific aspect of the way God wants to be loved.  

Affection between you & God reminds you that you have His heart.
Fear reminds you that you wear His name.
Affection reminds you you are His child.
Fear reminds you you are not an island. 
Affection reminds you that you can climb in His lap, be completey authentic, & encounter grace.
Fear reminds you that your obedience or disobedience effects God & has ramifications in how the world perceives God.

A man careful to obey God, not because he is afraid of the consequences to himself, but because he is aware of the worthiness of God & the consequences to God, His kingdom, His purposes, His name, this man rightly fears the Lord.

Standing toe to toe with my defections & affections & demons & deadlines - writing love notes & suicide notes which convey that i'm in the freedom of a continual farewell - Inside the gates of God's kingdom & inside the grit of the city's bustle, there i am & there i go.... heading up toward that Galatians 2:20 ledge above while trying to put this crazy good love to practical good use below... Yeah, it's good here. It's very good here. It's finger-licking, foot-washing good here.

 

 

 

more than i want my life, i want Yours

more than i want provision for my journey,

i want the Instigator of it.

more than i want Your solutions,

i want Your heart.

more than i want something f-r-o-m You,

i want something w-i-t-h You.

 

A friend of mine preached at church recently, & during the altar-call  he went up front,  prayed for himself,  and got saved.

recent morning devotions

& meditations

consist of impaling myself on

this thing called LOVE,

till I'm recognized

only by the blood stain

& the permanent scar

that has courage, humility,

healing, & joy

as its testimony.

Chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it. ~Colossians 3:12-14(MSG)

 

Most live a life too fast or too unfasted for time immersed in God's own words.

it's all up for grabs - all of it.
take what You want.
keep what Ya need.
counsel like it's going outta style while
opening up my deaf ears to hear every word.

If you sleep during seed time & planting, 

you will lack during harvest.  -God

If you had not been faithful during the  'I can't believe I have to do this' phase, you would never have made it to the ' I can't believe I get to do this' phase.  You are enjoying the momentum of 'want to' because you were faithful during the discipline of 'have to'. And what you sowed in faithfulness is being rewarded in fruitfulness. 

   For  followers  of  Christ  I  think  the  primary  question  is  not  'How'  should  our  lives  be  lived?  The  primary  question  is  this;  'From  where'  should  our  lives  be  lived?

I got to thinking about us, the way we were made…The way we are created for greatness, but can equally handle smallness if that sometimes be the road to it. The way we are allowed to take up the Life of Christ & let that deep shift transform, addict, & grab us body & soul.

I got to thinking about us -The way we are empowered to taste the Passover; judgment flying over we hidden souls behind blood stained doors. And the way we are subsquently empowered to passover transgressions from others with that same unshakeable & irresistible power of mercy & forgiveness.

The way we are empowered to lay down our life for others as if it were an honor to be asked, instead of an imposition to be endured.

Got to thinking about us…  Been thinking about how we are wired for greatness - The greatness it takes to take no account of suffered wrong, & to love strong enough for two when the love of one grows cold.  For loving when hated. For embracing when rejected – Rejecting rejection when it comes at us like arrows. For interceding when denied- For standing against the tide… We're created for greatness.

Been thinking how we've been given enough love for us & ours & for everybody else too.  How we can take it, when required. And dish it out when righteously necessary. How we can go it, when the second mile is calling from out of some trying situation. Been thinking about how we can bend when flexibility is the better choice, & stand erect in the winds of foolish change.

 

Been thinkin' bout how we’ve been wired to hold the secrets of others & spread them spilling out like a whisper before the Lord alone in prayer. Bout how we can have that love of God spilling over, plenty for come what may protection against bitterness & criticalness offenses & grudges.  Protecting one another instead of lashing out. 

 

Been thinking about how we are wired for twisting anger to peace with a calm response & gentle edifying words. For practicing ruthless mercy. For offering two garments & taking two slaps with the bigger picture in mind.For taking the high road when the low road seeks to evangelize us to its side.

Been thinking about us… About the way we are destined to bring shift change to our corner of the world with radical generosity & a revolution of goodness which runs headlong against the spirit of me, myself & I as well as the spirit of us & them. Yeah, we're called to greatness. Empowered to walk in it. Encouraged to yeild to it, to accept the truth of it. And with that acceptance, to "forever north crying freedom, run on unshakled"

 

There is a great difference

between asking Christ to

give you life & freedom

versus asking Christ to

be your life & freedom.

The I Heart Revolution - Moravians / Wesley / Booth from Glenn Stewart on Vimeo.

Jesus wants to build a church

that thrives in opposition & trouble.

Jesus wants to build a people

who will look at the greatest difficulties

 just as Joshua & Caleb

looked at the giants in the promised land

& simply said

"They will be bread for us."