Shine

When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb in 1879, he had a particular purpose in mind. Namely, the light bulb was created to emit light. It was wired to work a certain way and perform a certain task. To use it for purposes other than that for which it was created would result in disaster.

Baseball, for instance.

Have you ever tried to play baseball with a light bulb? Me neither. That’s because we know it would end badly. The light bulb would break and no longer be able to provide light as it was intended.

Imagine that you decided to go ahead and try it anyway. Chances are, it would take about one pitch for the light bulb to shatter to pieces.

Now imagine someone came along, got down on his hands and knees in the dirt, and began putting the light bulb back together. Imagine that when he was finished, after hours of diligent labor, the light bulb not only worked again, but shone even brighter than before. Would you ever play baseball with a light bulb again? Of course not. Lesson learned.

The truth, though, is that we play baseball with light bulbs every day.

God wired us to work a certain way. He created us for a particular purpose – namely, to represent and reflect His heart and character every moment of our lives.

Sin willfully and purposefully goes against what God originally intended for our lives.

It’s like playing baseball with a lightbulb.

Our sin shatters us.

But on the cross, Jesus put the pieces back together.

He restored us to our original condition, able to once again represent and reflect the God who made us, to once again shine as we were meant to shine.

Let’s stop working against our design and begin working with and for our Creator.

He knows far better than we what He intended when He made us.

Drawing Targets

There once was a little boy that received a bow and arrow set for his birthday. He excitedly ran outside to practice his shot on the side of an old barn that stood on the property. After he’d been at it a while, he ran back in to get his parents. “Mom! Dad! Come look!” he shouted.

They followed him out to the barn and were amazed at what they saw. Along the side of the barn, half a dozen targets had been drawn in chalk, each with an arrow lodged in the center.

Every single one had hit a perfect bullseye.

“That’s incredible! How did you manage to hit the bullseye every time?” his father asked.

“It was easy!” said the boy. “I shot the arrow first and then drew the target around it.”

You’ve got to admire his creativity.

Did you know, though, that the word “sin” is an archery term?

It means to miss the mark. It doesn’t matter if you miss by an inch or a mile – it’s a “sin.”

I’ve gotten really good at drawing circles around my sins. I’ve gotten good at justifying the miss by simply changing the target.

But the target isn’t mine to draw.

God has already done that.

And the target He has given me is Jesus.

If it’s not in obedience to Jesus, I’ve missed the mark. If it’s not in alignment with His heart and character, I’ve missed the mark. If it’s not how He would love and serve, I’ve missed the mark.

Instead of drawing our own targets, let’s spend a little more time improving our aim at the only target that matters.

Rigidity, Regret, and Repentance

We all fail. We do things that we know aren't right. We say things that we know aren't fair. We break promises. We choose selfishness and all the destruction that comes with it. We allow our pride to rule over our hearts. We all fail.

As I see it, we have three choices when we do.

We can be rigid.

We can be regretful.

Or we can be repentant.

To be honest, the tendency of my heart is to be rigid.

I want to defend what I've done. I want to justify my actions. I want to explain why I wasn't really at fault. I want to offer all the reasons for why I had no choice in the matter. I want to shirk responsibility and assign blame.

But rigidity doesn't restore relationship. In fact, far from serving as a bridge to relationship, it builds a wall against it.

Sometimes, when I'm able to catch my heart growing rigid, I manage to muster up some regret.

But that's not much better. You see, regret is little more than a negative emotion. I feel bad for what I've done. I wish I hadn't said what I said. I'm sorry I did that. But given enough time, the regret will pass, and I will be left unchanged.

In some ways, regret is as destructive as rigidity, for it allows me to continually hurt the people I love and believe that feeling sorry – and even saying it – is enough.

It's not. Instead, trust deteriorates as I habitually make the same choices over and over again.

Failure calls not for rigidity and not merely for regret, but for repentance.

To repent simply means to change directions. It means that I choose to not only stop going one way, but to start going another.

It calls us from something to something. From greed to generosity. From criticism to encouragement. From lies to truth. From unforgiveness to grace. From hurt to love.

Rigidity creates distance. It results in a hard heart. It makes intimacy impossible. It drives a wedge between relationships.

Regret requires nothing of me. It does not ask me to seek forgiveness. It does not compel me to change. It does nothing to pursue relationship.

Repentance is hard. It takes humility. It takes work. But it is decidedly for relationship.

And it's worth it. It is always worth it.

Glass Idols

Repost from 2016:

(Because every once in a while I need this reminder. Maybe you do, too.)

Each morning begins the same way. It begins with worship.

But not the kind of worship you might be thinking.

Each morning, I roll out of bed and go immediately to the shrine I have established in my bathroom. A little blue scale.

If yesterday I sacrificed an offering of oatmeal raisin cookies on the altar and demonstrated my devotion by paying penance at the gym, then today the weight gods will reward me with a favorable number. But if I, instead, ate my offering and skipped my penance, then I will be punished with a less than favorable number.

More than I would like to admit, my happiness rises and falls with that number.

It is nothing short of worship.

But this god of mine is far too small. It cannot love me or care for me. It cannot comfort me or encourage me. It cannot listen to me or cry with me.

It cannot die for me.

In fact, it is really no god at all.

So today I disassembled my shrine. The scale is gone. My glass idol lies shattered at the bottom of a garbage truck.

Tomorrow, my day will begin quite unlike it has of late. With worship, still, but of a different kind. You see, everything I have belongs to the God who gave everything for me.

My life.

My heart.

My body.

My worship.

If you are worshiping anything less than that God who made you and loves you and died for you, then your god is far too small. Maybe it's time to shatter your glass idol- whatever that may be.

The Bitter Taste of Slavery

The four cups of wine used in the Passover, as we saw yesterday, allow us to track the story of the Last Supper.

At Passover, the Jewish people would recount the story of God rescuing them from their slavery in Egypt. But it was more than just a verbal retelling. Every piece of the Passover meal served as a visual retelling.

The four cups of wine represented the four promises that God made.

The sacrificial lamb was a reminder that the Angel of Death had passed over their homes.

The unleavened bread told of how they had to leave Egypt so quickly that there was no time to let the bread rise.

The bitter herbs tasted like the bitterness of slavery.

The first two cups – the Cup of Sanctification and the Cup of Deliverance – are taken before the meal. The last two cups – the Cup of Redemption and the Cup of Restoration – were taken after the meal.

As Jesus sat around the Passover table with His disciples, He predicted that one of them would betray Him. The disciples are shaken at the thought and ask Jesus who he means.

Now, Jesus could have just said, “Judas.”

But Jesus is Jewish. So, as he so often does, He answers them in a very Jewish way.

Jesus responded, “It is the one to whom I give the bread I dip in the bowl.” And when he had dipped it, he gave it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot. (John 13:26, NLT)

Jesus dips the bread in the bowl of bitter herbs – intended to remind them of the bitter taste of slavery – and hands it to Judas.

Then Jesus told him, “Hurry and do what you’re going to do.” (John 13:27, NLT)

Judas got up and hurried into the night with the bitter taste of sin on his tongue.

He never tasted the Cup of Redemption.

Judas, just hours later, leads the Temple guard to Jesus and watches as He is arrested on charges of blasphemy.

I don’t know what Judas expected to happen. I don’t know what Judas was trying to accomplish in his betrayal.

Maybe he was motivated solely by greed and the thought of thirty pieces of silver in exchange for Jesus sounded too good to pass up. Maybe he, like the crowds who had cheered at Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, believed Jesus would lead a revolt again Rome and was attempting for force Jesus’ hand.

I don’t know what Judas was thinking.

What I do know is that he did not expect Jesus to die.

When Judas, who had betrayed him, realized that Jesus had been condemned to die, he was filled with remorse. So he took the thirty pieces of silver back to the leading priests and the elders. “I have sinned,” he declared, “for I have betrayed an innocent man.” (Matthew 27:3-4, NLT)

Judas was filled with remorse. But, as far as we know, his remorse never led to repentance.

The Bible tells us that Judas went out from the Temple and hanged himself.

The Cup of Redemption was still available to him.

It was too late to undo what he had set into motion. It was not too late to come back to Jesus.

But he took his own life without having tasted of it.

Have you tasted it? Have you let it wash away the bitter taste of sin?

So long as you have breath, it is not too late.

He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. (Ephesians 1:7, NLT)

Take up the cup, friends. Take it up and taste the redemption – the freedom, the forgiveness – that Jesus offers.

Read John 13:21-30 and think about a time that you had the bitter taste of sin on your tongue. Did you – have you – repented and tasted from the Cup of Redemption?

Spiritual Stockholm Syndrome

Four employees were held hostage at Swedish bank in 1973 when a botched bank robbery turned into a six-day standoff between the captors and the police. The incident, now decades past, would have been long forgotten save for an interesting twist.

The captors and captives bonded.

In fact, when one of the hostages spoke with the Swedish Prime Minister on the phone during the standoff, she said she trusted her captives fully, but feared she would die at the hands of the police.

She trusted her captors over her liberators.

The situation was so remarkable that it was dubbed “Stockholm Syndrome.”

It describes the implausible love of a captive for his captor.

It’s absurd.

But, I get it.

Sin is slavery. It takes me captive. It holds me hostage.

Yet, I choose it. I submit to it. I even love it.

The Bible says that we all do.

It’s a spiritual Stockholm Syndrome.

We have a Liberator. He offers us freedom.  He is decidedly on our side.

Let’s call sin what it is – a Captor.

Let’s, instead, trust our Liberator. Let’s love Him. Let’s choose Him.

To do otherwise is absurd.

Buggy

If you’ve never read the Dilbert comic strip, you’re missing out.  It’s really funny.

The comic pokes fun at the craziness of corporate culture – culture that stifles productivity, fosters laziness and awards incompetence. The cartoon’s observations of human behavior – though caricaturized – are remarkably astute (and not all that exaggerated).

In one strip, Dilbert is meeting with his Pointy-Haired Boss and the company CEO to update them on a recurring set of internal business issues.

“I found the root cause of our problems,” says Dilbert.  

“It’s people. They’re buggy.”

They sure are.

I sure am.

We are the root cause of nearly all of our problems. 

We are the root cause of our greatest miscommunications. We are the root cause of a lot of unresolved conflict. We are the root cause of most of our relational breakdowns.

We are all buggy.

It doesn’t do us any good to pretend otherwise.

So, let’s be gracious with one another. 

Let’s not be so hard on the flaws of other people.

Let's, instead, spend a little more time working on ours.

We might just change everything.

Off with His Head

In the 2010 remake of Alice in Wonderland, there's a scene in which the evil Red Queen discovers that her tarts have been stolen. To say that the Queen has a bit of a temper would be an understatement. She also, apparently, really loves tarts. When she realizes that they are gone, she sort of loses her marbles.

Infuriated, she bursts into the hallway and begins inspecting each of her servants, intent on finding the perpetrator. When, finally, the guilty servant is found, exposed by a hint of raspberry jam at the corner of his mouth, she bellows, "Off with his head!"

Every time I watch that scene, I just want to pull the Queen aside and say, "Look, I know he stole your tarts and all, but I think you might be overreacting just a little."

It's comical, of course, but the truth is that I often overreact myself. And when I do, it is anything but comical.

The man that just cut me off in traffic without using his turn signal? Off with his head!

The woman that won't stop talking excessively loudly on her phone in an otherwise quiet waiting room? Off with her head!

The guy at the gym that sits on the machines in between sets so that no one else can use them? Off with his head!

I could go on. You probably could too.

Thanks to a good bit of socializing, my irritation and impatience rarely surface. Yet there they are- right on the edge of my heart.

Therein lies the problem- my sinful heart.

The content of my heart comes pouring out when I get bumped. It spills over and exposes who I really am. It is evident in the words that escape my lips and in the ones left unspoken. Often, I turn out to be far less impressive than I thought myself to be.

If I am the problem, though, I cannot also be the solution. A sinful heart cannot remedy a sinful heart.

Jesus conquered my sin on the cross – and He conquered yours. His sacrifice on our behalf not only saves us, but changes us.

How has he changed you?