Christmas Break

Woof! I'm taking a Christmas blog break. Merry Christmas to you and yours. The blog will return on Monday, January 5th.

Thinking about Good King Wenceslas

Have you ever really thought about the words to Christmas carols that we sing every year? They're too long to copy in this blog, but I encourage you to click the link and read the full lyrics to Good King Wenceslas.

     http://www.carols.org.uk/good_king_wenceslas.htm

It's all about this good king who looks out his window and sees a poor man gathering fire wood. He takes his page and they bring the poor man food and fire wood. The wind is bitter cold, and the king's page grows weak and doesn't think he can make it. The king has him walk behind him, in his footsteps. This (1) blocks the wind, and (2) it's warmer where the king has stepped.

Think about that. When we face life with Jesus, he doesn't remove us from the bitter wind, from the suffering and sacrifice one endures by doing good, but he helps us bear it. We're doing it with him.

The song ends with these lines:

     Ye who now will bless the poor

     Shall yourselves find blessing

What a good thought for Christmas.

Thinking about Hark the Herald Angles Sing

Have you ever really thought about the words to Christmas carols that we sing every year? They are two lines in the second verse of this song:

     Pleased as man with man to dwell

     Jesus our Emmanuel

Wow. It still blows my mind thinking about God leaving his throne in heaven to be with us. To die for us. And all when we hated him. Christmas is such a special time, when even the secular world constantly plays this songs the proclaim the Gospel so powerfully.

Thinking about O Little Town of Bethlehem

Have you ever really thought about the words to Christmas carols that we sing every year? The end of the first verse of O Little Town of Bethlehem goes:

     In thy dark streets shineth

     The everlasting Light.

     The hopes and fears of all the years

     Are met in thee tonight.

Jesus really is the culmination of all of mankind's hopes and dreams. Jesus can still shine in the dark streets of our lives today as much as ever. He is ready and willing. Are we?

Thinking about Angels We Have Heard on High

Have you ever really thought about the words to Christmas carols that we sing every year? The chorus of Angels We Have Heard on High goes:

     Gloria in excelsis Deo!

It means “Glory to God in the highest!” At Christmas, even the secular world plays these songs. As pagan as our society has become, there's still one time of year where God's praise echos from under every rock, from every store. It does the heart good.

Thinking about What Child Is This?

Have you ever really thought about the words to Christmas carols that we sing every year? Sometimes you don't have to get past the title.

     What Child Is This?...

Whose child am I? Do we realize the answer depends on the question above? We would not be God's children if Jesus had not been Mary's. Think about that today.

Thinking about O Holy Night

Have you ever really thought about the words to Christmas carols that we sing every year? The end of the first verse of O Holy Night, with the first line of the chorus, is amazing.

     A thrill of hope

     The weary world rejoices

     For yonder breaks

     A new and glorious morn!

     Fall on your knees...

Are we weary this holiday season? God has the thrill of hope and a new and glorious morn for us, but it requires that we fall on our knees. Think about that today.

Thinking about O Come All Ye Faithful

Have you ever really thought about the words to Christmas carols that we sing every year?

     O Come, All Ye Faithful,

     Joyful and triumphant!

Sometimes you barely get past the title. Stop and just think about that right there. We're Christians, we're the faithful, but are we joyful and triumphant? We intellectually know we are, but do we get deceived into acting like we're not. Think about that, and may we all live out “joyful and triumphant” today.

Thinking about O Come O Come Emmanuel

Have you ever really thought about the words to Christmas carols that we sing every year? Have we taken the meaning of these songs for granted? Think about what the words of this song really mean:

     O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

     And ransom captive Israel,

     That mourns in lonely exile here,

     Until the Son of God appear.

     Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

     Shall come to thee, O Israel.

The cool thing is “Emmanuel” means “God With Us”. Rejoice this Christmas – God has come to be with us! For real!

Thinking about Carole of the Bells

This is one of my favorite Christmas carols. Have you ever really thought about these words? Think about this while reading the words below. We're the bells. Are we ringing?

     Hark how the bells,

     Sweet silver bells,

     All seem to say,

     “Throw cares away.”

     Christmas is here

     Bringing good cheer

     To young and old

     Meek and the bold.

     One seems to hear

     Words of good cheer

     From everywhere

     Filling the air.

     Oh, how they pound!

     Raising the sound!

     Over hill and dale,

     Telling their tale.

     On, on they send,

     On without end,

     Their joyful tone

     To every home.

Thinking about Joy to the World

Have you ever really thought about the words to Christmas carols that we sing every year? Have we taken the meaning of these songs for granted? Think about what the words of this song really mean:

     Joy to the world!

     The Lord has come!

     Let earth receive her king!

     Let every heart

     Prepare him room,

     And heaven and nature sing.

Let this bounce around your heart today.

Getting Free from Shame/Fear/Control

Getting free from the shame/fear/control stronghold we've been talking about this week generally takes help/ministry from a friend, pastor, counselor, or all of the above. That's just the way it is. We'd like to do it ourselves so we don't expose our shame about having shame. Doh! Do you see the cycle playing itself out even in trying to get free from it?

Opening up to another person about all this kicks fear in the head, because we're taking the risk. And without fear, shame has no power, and we have no need to control. Taking that risk is an act of faith; we're trusting God to keep us safe, rather than doing it ourselves.

And there's another key reason to involve someone else in our process of getting free. We got into the clutches of the shame/fear/control stronghold by believing lies, by being deceived. There's a funny thing about being deceived – we don't know we're deceived. By definition – think about what the word “deceived” means. So it's easy to think we've gotten free from it when we really haven't. We all need a trusted circle (at least one person but hopefully a few) who will tell us the truth that no one else will.

The big thing is praying to replace ungodly beliefs with godly ones. While you're praying, renounce the ungodly belief as a lie (out loud), and state the godly belief that you now believe (out loud). The person praying with you can pronounce freedom to you. (“Confess your sins one to another” James 5:16.)

This is very powerful stuff. It's not about saying magic words. It's about saying out-loud what you believe in your heart, and hearing someone else say out loud their blessing over us. Because we have governmental authority (see my post on this subject, here's the link: http://www.davewernli.com/2014/07/we-have-governmental-authority.html).

I cannot recommend this highly enough. It may seem a little strange at first – but trust me on this one. It is so much better to be free – you'll be so glad you did.

God's Truth over Shame/Fear/Control

Monday we talked about the shame/fear/control stronghold (scroll down to see that post). Today we'll talk about how to defeat it. It's all about agreement – who are we going to agree with? The ungodly beliefs that give shame/fear/control legal right to oppress us, or God's truth – what he says about us.

Here's what shame/fear/control says versus what God says.

Shame says, “I am uniquely flawed; no one is as bad as me.” God says, “No temptation has overtaken me except what is common to mankind” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Shame says, “I am fatally flawed; no one can fix me.” God says, “By his strips I am healed” (1 Peter 2:24). God says, “He was pierced for my transgressions, the weight of my sin was upon him” (Isaiah 53:5). God says, “He became sin for me” (1 Corinthians 5:21).

Shame says, “I am something bad.” Godly conviction says. “I did something bad” (1 John 1:8-10). God says, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). God says he loves us (Psalm 139, Ephesians 1:3-14, 1 John 3:1, and many, many more).

Fear and control say, “I have to control my circumstances and situations.” God says, “I should cast all my cares on him because he cares for me” (1 Peter 5:7).

Fear and control say, “I have to make sure I enough with my own hand.” God says, “He will supply my every need according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

So you decide. Who are you going to believe?

The Shame/Fear/Control Stronghold

Shame is the lie that we are uniquely & fatally flawed. Uniquely flawed – no one else is as bad as me. I'm the only one who feels this way, the only one who is this bad. Fatally flawed – I'm unfixable, I can't get healed from this, so the best I can do is hide it so no one else knows.

So we live in fear that someone else will find out, that our shame will be exposed. So we control our environment – our lives and the people around us – to prevent anyone from finding out. Sometimes we turn into people pleasers, agreeing with the group or person we're with at the time to be accepted. Sometimes we turn into perfectionist performers, trying desperately to appear good enough to hide that we're not. Sometimes we turn completely immoral – better to let the world see the shame I want to show them rather then the shame I'm trying to hide: “You won't see that if I show you this.”

The shame/fear/control stronghold is one of the most effective strategies the enemy has to keep Christians from living out who they really are. If the enemy can't defeat your salvation, he at minimum wants to neutralize your giftings and steal your destiny. Because you living out who you really are, who God's called you to be, literally scares the Heaven out of him.

We all have it, to one degree or another. Stay tuned – Wednesday we'll talk about how to defeat it.

Intimacy Wants To, Not Has To

Obedience is easy when you're in passionate love. In fact, we don't even think of it as “obedience.” We so want to please our lover that anything we even get the inkling they would like we are totally ready to do. And more. “Really? That's all you want? You can have more. I can do more.”

We try to invent ways to please them, to surprise them with what we did, just to see them smile. If what they want us to do is also actually good for us, that's a bonus. We'd have done it anyway.

That's the way our morality should be with God. If we obey his laws and follows his ways from a place of intimacy, deep lover-passion, it's not burdensome, which it's not anyway because his laws are good for us. Unless we're deceived, then it can be burdensome.

But in the truth of his intimacy, it's a delight. Pleasing him brings us closer to him, our lover. And we're disappointed we can't do more, because we want to be even closer to him.

It's not about “earning” closeness to him, or doing good to get close. It's about doing good because we are already so close. Out of love, not obligation. It's a world of difference in perspective.

Intimacy Serves

The mark of our intimacy with Jesus is not how awesome our experiences with him are. Nor how long they are. Nor how often.

The mark of our intimacy with him is how we serve others. The Bible says it better than I ever could:

“The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45).

“[Jesus], who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Philippians 2:6-7).

“In humility, consider others better than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3b)

We reflect the person we spend time around the most. Jesus was the biggest servant humanity ever saw or ever will. If we truly have intimacy with him, we'll show that by serving those around us, and loving doing so.

Identity from Intimacy

Who we really are, our true identity, flows out of spending time with Jesus.

The world shouts at us constantly. Lies about who we are. Lies about how to be who we are told we want to be. Contradictory lies, one for every possible vulnerability. The enemy only has to win once.

But Jesus whispers who we are. Who we really are. Who he created us to be. Our true destiny. Constantly. Consistently.

If someone's shouting and someone's whispering, you have to be really close to the whisperer to hear them. And we will eventually believe the one we hear the most.

Finding our true destiny depends on our intimacy with Jesus.

The Power of Agreement

We forget who we are sometimes. It's easy to do. We get caught up in our schedule, our commute, all the demands placed on us. The emergency trip to the craft store for the school project assigned a week ago that our child just told us about now, due tomorrow of course. Kid stuff. Family stuff. Work stuff. Accident blocking the interstate, tripling our commute. Kidney stone. Flu. Worse, kid with flu.

All of these are legitimate things that we have to deal with. There's a country song that goes, “Some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug.” Great song. But we are made in the image of the Living God. We are never the bug, no matter what happens.

We have governmental authority over the atmosphere around us. Not over the circumstances – God appoints the times and seasons – God chooses where (that is, in what circumstances) he appoints us. But in those circumstances, he appoints us as his government. (See my post http://www.davewernli.com/2014/07/we-have-governmental-authority.html for the scripture about our governmental authority.)

Anyone who's ever worked for the US Federal Government knows that when governmental bodies are in full agreement, it is a powerful (and rare) thing. When the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches agree on something, it's the Law of the Land, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. When government agencies agree to cooperate, they can put in place tremendously effective programs to catch bad guys.

In the Kingdom of God, it takes far less people, and our agreement is even more powerful. Listen to this: “If any two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” (Matthew 18:19-20 NIV) Jesus himself said that.

In our own lives and the atmosphere that surrounds our lives, it only takes one. Ourselves. Agreeing with God, or not. Every moment of every day, we are either agreeing with what God says about the situation, or we are agreeing with what the enemy says about the situation.

Let's agree to agree with God and what God says. It's harder but more effective. In the end, we'll be glad we did. That's faith, you see. And Jesus always responds to faith.

Such A Time As This

“Who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14b NIV). Mordecai said that to his niece, Queen Esther, to encourage her and strengthen her heart.

She needed it. She alone, of all Israel, was in a position to speak to King Xerxes and stop the planned slaughter of the Jews in Persia. Uncle Mort was asking her to do to a very dangerous thing – appear before the King without being summoned. She had a very good, legitimate reason for not wanting to do that. Normally that would get you killed.

But then again, normally the original queen would never have been deposed. Normally, a Jewish peasant girl (who hid she was Jewish) would not be chosen to be in the replacement harem. And normally, that same said Jewish peasant girl would not be chosen to be the new queen, right at the same time there was a plot afoot to murder all the Jews. Nothing about this was normal.

How about us here in America? The freest, greatest country in the world, looked to as the world leader. Yet we're tearing ourselves apart, embroiled in a fierce culture war, and righteousness appears to be losing. There's nothing normal about this.

Do we remember who we are? “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14). It doesn't matter what the pagans do; it matters what we as the Church does. It's a call to sell out completely as disciples of Jesus, pursuing intimacy with him above all else. Deciding to agree with him about all issues whether we understand, agree, or dislike his answer or not, dying to ourselves and our precious American rights.

It's exciting, really, to be on the cusp of changing a culture back to God. Who knows but that we have come to our present position for such a time as this?

Has Jesus Suffered Enough?

Someone hurt me really bad. Really, really, bad. Betrayal bad. Someone close to me, someone I trusted implicitly. You know those times when you're hurt so bad you can hardly breathe? Then they were unrepentant and the pain went on and on.

I knew I should forgive. I said the words. I tried to feel it in my heart. But the next day it would come up again. Forgiveness is a process. I would forgive again, do my best to let it go, but, boy, did that person owe me.

Then a Christian counselor taught me that the person is not the evil they did to me. Yes, they did evil to me, no doubt about it. But the person is not the evil they did. She taught me that once we can acknowledge that, then we can come to a place where the person doesn't owe us anything.

While she was teaching me, I had a vision. Not an open vision or anything, just in my mind's eye. I saw Jesus hanging on the cross, and he asked me, “Have I suffered enough to pay you back for what that person did to you?”

The question shocked me. I knew Jesus died for my sins against God, but it never occurred to me that he died for other people's sins against me. “Yes, Jesus, of course,” was all I could say. And I meant it. Instantly, the feeling that the person owed me a debt vanished. I can honestly say I felt like they didn't owe me a thing. It was the most freeing feeling in the world!

That person's sin is now between them and God. I'm out of it. Even if they are still bound by their sin, I'm not bound by it anymore. And I can pray blessing for that person.

That's forgiveness. Not that I'm patting myself on the back or anything. The point here is if I could learn it, so can you.  

The Cop-Out of “Don't Judge Me”

Does not judging mean I have to tolerate abuse or evil behavior against me? The perps would like us to think so. Abusers pervert the whole “don't judge” principle to their unholy advantage. So let's get this sorted out and bring some balance here.

Judging, accountability, and our emotions are all totally independent. Our society, and even the church, constantly gets these confused. You can forgive someone and hence not be judging them, while at the same time holding them accountable for their behavior, while still being angry and hurt. If their behavior was criminal, you can prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law while completely forgiving them.

We should always hold abusers and criminals accountable for their behavior, for two main reasons:

1. To protect others from being victimized like we were.
2. So (hopefully) the person, when confronted with their sin, repents and turns to the Lord who sets them free from it, healing them from the pain in their lives that made them vulnerable to that sin in the first place.

Working through our emotions over the matter is totally separate from whether we hold the other person accountable or not. If the sin against us was grievous, we may need to walk our emotions through the stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance). Get Christian counseling, inner healing, deliverance, probably all of the above, whatever help you need to work through it. It's normal to need help to work through the emotions in a healthy way. An excellent plan is to work with both a Christian counselor and your Pastor.

Forgiveness doesn't mean pretending it never happened and or not holding the person accountable. It means releasing them from owing us anything for it. Because we realize they are not what they do. We can still set healthy boundaries as long as our heart is right – not to punish them but either to (1) keep ourselves safe, or (2) hold them accountable (for example, if it's an authority-to-subordinate relationship like parent-child or employer-employee).

Judging and forgiving are not activities centered in our emotions, but in our will. They have nothing to do with how we feel about the person who hurt us. They have everything to do with what we choose to believe about that person. They have everything to do with what we declare about that person.

So what do we declare about the person who wronged us? Are they the evil they did to us? That's judging. Or can we declare that they are not the evil they did to us? That's forgiveness. It really is that simple (but it's not easy).

Mercy toward others triumphs over the judgement we deserve.

Law of Relationships #4 of 4

You become what you judge. When I first heard this, I took some convincing. But they showed it to me in the Word of God: Romans 2:1 says, “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgement on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.” See? You become what you judge.

Since learning about this, I have witnessed it to be true, both in my own life and in the lives of those close to me. When we harbor resentment and judgment, we will eventually start doing the same things, and eventually become what we hated.

If it's not too corny, think about this. Even George Lucas has figured this out. It's the theme of the Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi. Luke's vengeance against his father (Darth Vader) gives him the opportunity to become his father. This is the choice Luke must make at the end of the movie – to complete his judgement on his father, and hence become him, or to forgive his father. And it's the power of Luke's forgiveness that frees his father from his deception, and he saves Luke. But whether Luke lived or died, he still made the better choice. Better to die at the hands of Emperor Palpatine than to live as Darth Vader II.

Judgment sets us up to become what we hated. This is why forgiveness is so vitally important. It releases us from repeating the evil done to us.

Mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2:13b NIV).

Law of Relationships #3 of 4

Don't judge, or you'll be judged. This is an example of sowing and reaping (see Friday's blog http://www.davewernli.com/2014/10/law-of-relationships-2-of-4.html).

Judging and forgiving are complete opposites. When someone does evil against us, we are either doing one or the other. But we'll get to this in a couple of days. This relationship law goes far beyond evil done to us. Because unfortunately, our judging often goes far beyond evil done to us.

We judge things we don't like, even though the person isn't doing anything to us. We sometimes make our personal preferences into idols, and then our self-righteousness makes them doctrine to impose on others. At that point, we've become Pharisees, who made the Traditions of the Elders equal to the Law of Moses (Matthew 15:1-6).

Churches have split over the style of music or the color of the carpet. Ever condemn a style of music you didn't like? If the words are sinful, then the words are certainly wrong, but not the style. The style, the instrumental music itself, is ok even if we don't personally like it.

So if it's something that doesn't affect us, if it isn't in black 'n' white contradiction to the Word of God, and if it isn't self-destructive behavior, we're better of dropping it. It's probably just our personal preference. And we'll receive the same grace from God we give the other person (or not).

Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Law of Relationships #2 of 4

You reap what you sow. Galatians 6:7 says, Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. This one is all over scripture. We've all heard the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31), treat others like you want to be treated. But rarely are we told the reason. Growing up, I always thought it was just one of those “must do because it's the right thing” things.

But the truth is, even from a selfish point-of-view, we want to do this. Because we reap what we sow. People will treat us the way we treat them. This concept is actually getting a little traction in the culture with the phrase, “Pay it forward.” Or how about the bumper sticker I've seen so often, “Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” Or to put it more bluntly, “What goes around comes around.” See, even the world has figured this one out.

So what about when I sow kindness and mercy and people give me crap? What about when I'm nice and people are still jerks to me? Huh? What about that?!? Wow, then you're very lucky. Because then, God makes up the difference, because you're being like him. He will be kind and merciful and gentle and understanding to you. He will “pay it forward” to you. And that's way better than any person could ever do anyway.

And if you're really lucky, he'll pay you in currency of intimacy with him. There are no greater riches.

Law of Relationships #1 of 4

The first law (or principle) of relationships that God has woven throughout the fabric of the universe involves the very first relationship we ever had – the one with our parents. “Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” (Deuteronomy 5:16) This one is so important it made the Ten Commandments. And it's the first commandment with an explicit blessing (Ephesians 6:2).

In whatever area you honor your parents in, you will be blessed – it will go well with you. That's a promise from God. But the reverse is also true – in whatever area you do not honor your parents in, it will not go well with you.

There's no age limit given in the commandment. Even as an adult living on our own, there's still a blessing for honoring our parents. We can still make our own decisions. But we should listen to them, and prayerfully consider what they say, even if we think they don't know what they're talking about. Just because they're not experts, or even knowledgeable, about the domain they're giving us advice about, doesn't mean it's not from God. God often speaks through parents, especially godly ones, even in stuff they know nothing about. The Holy Spirit is giving us wisdom through them – it will go well with us if we listen, and it will not go well with us if we don't. Ask God how to apply what they've said.

What if they're abusive? We don't have to submit ourselves to unsafe situations. We can set healthy boundaries, and they don't have to like them. Just because they accuse us of being dishonoring doesn't mean we are. But there are healthy boundaries within which we can honor our parents, whether they deserve that honor or not. In an abusive situation, please ask a Christian counselor and your Pastor to help you set healthy boundaries.

Judgements we hold in our hearts about our parents – this is the most common form of dishonoring our parents. We need to release ourselves from that judgement by forgiving them – accepting that they are not the evil they did to us. We can acknowledge that they did evil to us, whether they do or not. But we release them from owing us anything – we claim Jesus' sufferings as payment in full for the wrong they did against us.

See my previous posts about forgiveness for help with this very difficult task.

    http://www.davewernli.com/2014/09/the-good-guy-and-bad-guy-chairs.html

    http://www.davewernli.com/2014/09/getting-out-of-that-chair.html

    http://www.davewernli.com/2014/10/re-profiling.html

God's Physics of Relationships

The laws of God are like gravity. They exist and operate whether we believe in them or not. I'm using the word “law” here like in physics – principles we observe operating universally. God set up these laws to bless us. For example, airplanes, gymnastics, weather and communication satellites – all of these blessings come from understanding the law of gravity and using it properly.

But if we say, “I don't believe in gravity, so I'm going to jump off my roof and fly,” I daresay we are in for a rude awakening and an abrupt landing! Gravity still operates as God designed it whether we believe in it on not. “Gee, that was dumb,” we would say to ourselves as we hobble around the next few weeks on crutches. We injure ourselves if we try to live in opposition to God's law of gravity.

God's principles apply to the saved and unsaved alike. Both saved and unsaved can be blessed by air travel or an around-the-world phone call. Both saved and unsaved alike will be injured if they jump off their garage. Hobble, hobble.

So many of us today, even Christians, hobble through our injured relationships because we don't understand relationship principles, as trustworthy and universal as physical laws, that God wove into the fabric of the universe to bless us. When we live in opposition to them out of ignorance or outright willful sin, we injure ourselves, saved or unsaved. But when we live in accordance with them, that area of our life will be blessed, saved or unsaved.

So these next few blog posts will be fun – stayed tuned as we go through God's 4 laws of relationships. You might find it explains a lot. :)

I Like Winning Banners

[Author's Note: I've repeated the following post several times. That's because I think it's so important that we realize the intimacy Jesus wants with us. It's really foundational to what I've trying to say and do with this blog.]

In Song of Solomon 6:4, the Lover (Jesus) calls his Beloved (you and me), “majestic as troops with banners.” Armies carry banners to celebrate battles they've won, and to show off to any potential future adversaries how BA they are.

In the next verse, Song of Songs 6:5, the Lover (Jesus) says to his Beloved (you and me), “Turn your eyes from me, they overwhelm me.” The Lover is saying to his Beloved, “Don't look at me like that – the love in your eyes for me is overwhelming me with emotion and I might lose it,” while he smiles and looks away, so she can't see he's blushing. Jesus is blushing!

When you don't feel like you're winning at all, when life has the better of you, when you're sure you're going down for the last time, when you can't feel His presence, but you still choose His ways and choose to trust Him instead of give place to fear and anxiety – in those times when you felt Nothing but chose Him anyway, He felt Everything! You just won a majestic banner, and He blushed.

I like winning banners. Out of His overwhelmingly great love for us, He puts us in those situations where we feel overwhelmed and don't feel Him at all. So we can win a banner. So we can choose to trust Him instead of dwelling in fear, out of our love for Him, and it makes Him blush!

On that Day when we finally see him face-to-face, the walls of our mansion in Heaven will be decorated with the banners we won in this life in those moments when we trusted Him instead of ourselves or something else. Wow.

Shame vs Guilt

Guilt, or conviction, is what the Holy Spirit gives us, because he loves us, when we do something wrong. He's trying to correct our behavior that (1) is self-destructive, and (2) interferes in our relationship with him. The message of guilt is, “I did something wrong.”

Shame, on the other hand, is not from God, but rather is Satan's perversion of godly guilt. Shame is the belief that I am uniquely and fatally flawed. The message of shame is, “I am something wrong.” That's the “flawed” part. In addition are the “uniquely” and “fatally” adjectives of shame:

• “I am uniquely flawed.” No one is as bad as me. I am the only one with this problem.
• “I am fatally flawed.” I can't be fixed. My flawed-ness is permanent.

Shame holds so many Christian's in prison, keeping them from living out their true identity, or often even knowing it. But each of shame's three lies described above get smashed to pieces by the Word of God:

• I'm not something wrong. I was made in God's own image (Genesis 1:27). I have been made a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), and God loves me apart from what I do (Ephesians 1:3-14).
• I'm not uniquely flawed; I'm not the only one like this. No temptation has seized me but that which is common to mankind (1 Corinthians 10:13).
• I am not fatally flawed. Jesus' blood is bigger and stronger than any and all of my sin, and by his stripes I have been healed (Isaiah 53:5, Romans 6:10, Hebrews 9:28, 1 Peter 3:18).

So who are you going to believe?

Re-Profiling

Forgiveness can be really hard. Especially when you've truly been grievously and unfairly wronged. Especially when the perp is unrepentant. But it's so important, because our unforgiveness keeps us in prison, not the other person.

It's a process, not a single event. It can be a long process, one that we keep going back to – forgiving again and again – layer after layer – going deeper and deeper.

One exercise that can significantly help us along in this process is re-profiling the person. No single person is wholly evil – only Satan and his demons have that distinction. So there is something good about the person. Rack your brain and find those things. If you just can't, ask the Holy Spirit; he'll tell you. Then write it down.

The goal here is to write down how God sees the other person, which is not necessarily how they are behaving right now, but how he made them to be. So then when we fall into bitterness, we go back and read our re-profile of them. Read it out loud – let your ears hear your mouth say it. It's powerful.

Then you start thinking of the other person in terms of how God made them, versus what they've done. Because they are not the evil they did to you. Wrapping our mind and heart around that last sentence is the essence of forgiveness.

Re-profiling makes this much easier, and it is very freeing. Try it!

Fear, The Great Identity Stealer

I find, in my own life and in the lives of others I talk to, there's one thing, more than anything else, that keeps us from living out who we really are. Fear, The Great Identity Stealer.

What if I try and it doesn't work? What if I fail? Most of us have been raised with such a performance orientation that we're deceived into thinking that failure's bad. But failure is not sin. And in the Kingdom of God, not only is it a prerequisite, it has another name – Experience.

God has a track record of calling people to things bigger than themselves that are totally impossible and won't work, at least not by human standards or human effort alone.

• A guy who stutters, Moses, to talk one-on-one to the most powerful leader in the world and demand he release a million slaves.
• A cowering farmer (Gideon) to be a warrior and deliver Israel.
• A shepherd boy, David, to be king of Israel.
• A peasant girl (Mary) to be the mother of the Messiah.
• An uneducated fisherman, Peter, to be the apostle to the Jews, who respected learning and education.
• An educated Pharisee, Paul, who hated Christianity and was trying to destroy it, to be the apostle to the Gentiles (who couldn't care less about the Jewish law), and to write more books in the New Testament than any other writer.
• Me, a software engineer of 25+ years, to write a book about emotions (Mixed Emotions), and transition to a Christian author and speaker.
• You, to do that thing that makes your heart leap.

I love the stories, like Moses and Gideon, where people argue with God about their calling. God never disagrees with them about their excuses; he just totally ignores them. “Nevertheless,” he says, “I will be with you.” Translation: “Come on, it'll be fun. You'll like it. Eventually.” And suddenly the impossible works out.

See, God's called you to do something you can't do without him because he wants to partner with you to get it done. So if God's our partner, what are we afraid of?

When I wrote my book, Mixed Emotions, I was tremendously afraid it would be a flop. I didn't want to risk being a failure. But then I thought, you know, I know what it looks like if I don't do this. I've been doing that for 25 years. But I don't know what it looks like if I do try this. And there's only one way to find out. So I followed my heart and took the leap, and we'll see where it goes. I'm learning by successes and failures along the way what works and what doesn't. I'm still finding out what it looks like. But I'm loving the adventure.

How about you? What makes your heart leap? If you were, theoretically, to do that thing, what would the first step be? Think it out, plan it out, and then take the leap. Try it. See what it looks like. If it fails, learn from the experience and try again, wiser this time. The Lord your God is with you.

Offense, The Great Energy Stealer

There's a great book by John Bevere called The Bait of Satan about offense. Allowing ourselves to be offended at other people is The Great Energy Stealer. I'm not talking about disagreeing or being angry with people – I'm talking about being offended at people. You know the difference. We've all felt it.

It takes so much energy to stay offended. God made us very capable people, so we can do pretty much anything we put our mind to. So if we decide to stay offended, we certainly can. But that's not what God designed us for, so it's exhausting.

All that energy could have been put into being who we were created by God to be, but being offended steals it. And it blinds our mind so all we can see is red. Here's a litmus test: If we can't pray blessing on the other person, we're offended.

So let's disagree with others without being offended by them. We do that by praying to God, confessing our sin of offense to him (it doesn't matter whether the other person sinned or not, or how wrong they are), and asking him to take our offense. And then let it go by praying blessing on the other person. You'll be amazed at how much lighter you feel, and how much extra energy you have.

Reaction, The Great Authority Stealer

As Christians, we know revenge is wrong. We quote Romans 12:9, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (which is Paul quoting Deuteronomy 32:35). We don't think of our reactions as revenge. But many times, when we have an ungodly reaction to something, we're really taking revenge, punishing the other person with our wrath.

Reaction, revenge, striking back, whatever you want to call it, is The Great Authority Stealer. It cements us as the Victim, and the other person as the Perpetrator. In the ungodly relationship between Victim and Perp, who has the power, the authority? The Perp!

But that is not God's plan for us. As the Bible says in Hebrew 6:9, “I am confident of better things in your case.” We can express emotion, as long as we also exercise godly self-control. “In your anger do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26). Here's a free hint: Use “I feel...” statements rather than “You did...” statements.

An ungodly reaction comes from a lack of trust in God. When we trust God, and the first word out of our mouth is praise to him in that circumstance (and y'all know that circumstance in your own life), we retain our Authority that Jesus gave us through His blood to speak life into that situation, and to the other person.

And we make Satan stub his toe. Let's make that bugger hobble on crutches!

Intimacy Forever

Most religions' version of heaven promises some form of eternal pleasure. Most are some form of self-centered pleasure. One world religion even promises 70 virgins. Not sure that's heaven for the virgins. Subtle clues of a man-made religion. Another promises being god of your own world.

But Christianity is different. Eternal pleasure, yes, but the pleasure is Jesus. Spending time with him, seeing him face-to-face. Eternal intimacy, relationship unhindered, with the Father. Forever.

The really mind-blowing thing is God designed it so it's heaven for Him, too. Whoa, now that's a brainful!

A Sloppy Wet Kiss

There's a song by Jesus Culture called How He Loves that has the best line in a worship song ever. Of. All. Time.

Heaven meets Earth like a sloppy wet kiss

Sometimes we have such a wrong view of God. He is neither a harsh task-master opposed to fun nor a kindly grandfather who's nice but completely irrelevant.

He's a passionate lover-king, who could do anything he wants at anytime, but doesn't do anything without partnering with us. Such is his deep, lover-passion for living life with us. Totally awesome.

Duty vs Pleasure

I've heard people talk about our Christian duty – to live holy lives, to share our faith, etc. And we should live holy lives and share our faith and all that. But out of some sense of “Christian duty”? I think that's the wrong paradigm. Duty is often a synonym for drudgery.

Think of it this way. It's a husband's duty to make love to his wife, but he seldom thinks of it as duty. It's something he looks forward to, because he loves his wife and it's way fun.

We should have the same mindset about living a Christian life, sharing our faith, etc. And if we really knew Jesus as our soul-lover we would. Our lover-king.

Living holy is So. Much. Fun. And sharing our faith – if we really knew God, we'd love it. The Holy Spirit shows up with words-of-knowledge for the other person, and maybe we get to pray for physical or emotional healing or something. I mean, how cool is it to do miracles, right?

Doing things out of lover-pleasure beats duty any day of the week.

Fear vs Adventure

Yesterday I talked about softly worshipping out loud wherever we find ourselves, by giving soft voice to the worship song already going through our head anyway.

I bet most readers had the same initial reaction to that idea: Fear. Would we be afraid to do that? I'd wager that is most people's initial reaction.

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty fed up with Fear right now. Like, it is officially off my Christmas card list. Fear is the great paralyzer. Even more than Judgment, which we talked about last week, Fear steals who we really are. And personally, I'm sick and tired of being pushed around by it. So I'm kicking Fear in the head. Whenever I realize I'm afraid, and Fear is the main reason I'm not doing what otherwise seems like a good idea, especially if it seems like a God-idea, I'm doing it anyway. I'm get excited to see what adventure God brings me.

So I'm trying to start something here. Let's start quietly singing the worship song going through our head. If there's not one going through your head, then don't worry about it. But if there is, give it voice. Let's see where God takes us. Send me email or post a comment and let me know what happens.

My “What If...”

What if we all worshiped all day long? No really. Many of us have a worship song going through our heads all day long. What if we let that song come out? What if we gave it voice? Just a little bit, out loud, but not loud, just softly. Not obnoxiously singing in public, but quietly, just a whisper, so only someone next to us could hear it?

It would change the atmosphere everywhere we went. The likes of Letterman and Seinfeld would joke about bumping into these quiet singers everywhere they went, and how annoying they are when you're trying to have a bad day.

It would change the atmosphere everywhere we went. And Christians would get a reputation in the society as worshipers instead of judgers. How awesome would that be?

Don't do this if you don't have a song in your head; that would just be legalistic. Don't force it. But if you happen to have a song in your head while you're out somewhere, just let it out. Let it have quiet voice. Let's start something here. Let's see what happens.  

The Routine Buster

Are you caught in the grid? It's so easy to get caught up in our schedules, activities, and all. And that's all good stuff. But that stuff's not the point.

Trapped in the routine of our daily lives, the flood of the ordinary can drown out any spark of the supernatural. And the real casualty is our expectations. We don't see the miraculous because we don't expect it anymore.

Solace – the practice of getting alone with God – is the great routine buster. It renews our mind, and our heart. It refreshes our spirit, recharges our battery. In Solace, the Lord reminds us of the adventure we're on and the plans He has for us. He renews our hope and dreams.

We might just begin to hope in them again. And maybe, just maybe, even take the first baby step in that direction. You know, if this dream on my heart was to happen, what's the first step I would take? Then take it. See where it goes. What if?

Getting Out of that Chair

This week we've talked about how we put ourselves in the Good Guy Chair and people who have wronged us in the Bad Guy Chair, and how judging steals our identity. So here's how to get out of the Good Guy Chair; aka, the Victim Chair.

Forgiveness.

Forgiveness is not pretending nothing happened. We can admit they sinned against us and did an evil, ugly thing to us. Forgiveness is declaring they are not the evil, ugly thing – their action was. We forgive by understanding we as human beings are not what we do. And the other person is not what they do. They are not the evil they did to us.

Forgiveness is an act of the will. You can be angry about what was done to you and still choose to forgive. You can still set boundaries so you're not hurt again while still choosing to forgive. That is, provided our anger and our boundaries are set against the person's actions – not against the person themselves.

They are not what they did to us. That realization, which can only hit home in our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit, allows us to still grieve what they did to us and hence go through the process of healing the wound, while simultaneously releasing them from owing us anything for it. That's forgiveness.

The Good Guy and Bad Guy Chairs

Yesterday we talked about how judgement steals our true identity because we become what we judge.

When we judge, we put ourselves in the Good Guy Chair, and we put the other person in the Bad Guy Chair. The trick to getting judgement out of our lives and getting our true identity back is to get out of the Good Guy Chair. But that means releasing the other person from the Bad Guy Chair.

There's another reason we want out of that Good Guy chair as fast as possible. It has another name, a secret name. A name that if we realized it, we would never have climbed up in there to begin with.

The Good Guy Chair is really the Victim Chair. And unless we release the other person from the Bad Guy Chair, we will be stuck in a life of victimization. Who wants to be a victim? Not me, and I'll bet not you.  

The Great Identity Stealer

Judgement – more than anything else – steals our true God-given identity, who he created us to be. Because we become what we judge.

Romans 2:1 says, “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgement on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.” Did you catch that? To say it another way, “You do the same thing you judge the other person for doing.” So when we judge, we will start doing that thing we judged. God's word cannot be broken.

God didn't create us to be what we're judging. That's not our true identity at all. Nowhere in the Bible is judging on the list of spiritual gifts. No one has the gift of judgment or criticism. So judging is the great identity stealer – it turns us into something we were never meant to be.

I Like Winning Banners

In Song of Solomon 6:4, the Lover (Jesus) calls his Beloved (you and me), “majestic as troops with banners.” Armies carry banners to celebrate battles they've won, and to show off to any potential future adversaries how BA they are.

In the next verse, Song of Songs 6:5, the Lover (Jesus) says to his Beloved (you and me), “Turn your eyes from me, they overwhelm me.” The Lover is saying to his Beloved, “Don't look at me like that – the love in your eyes for me is overwhelming me with emotion and I might lose it,” while he smiles and looks away, so she can't see he's blushing. Jesus is blushing!

When you don't feel like you're winning at all, when life has the better of you, when you're sure you're going down for the last time, when you can't feel His presence, but you still choose His ways and choose to trust Him instead of give place to fear and anxiety – in those times when you felt Nothing but chose Him anyway, He felt Everything! You just won a majestic banner, and He blushed.

I like winning banners. Out of His overwhelmingly great love for us, He puts us in those situations where we feel overwhelmed and don't feel Him at all. So we can win a banner. So we can choose to trust Him instead of dwelling in fear, out of our love for Him, and it makes Him blush!

On that Day when we finally see him face-to-face, the walls of our mansion in Heaven will be decorated with the banners we won in this life in those moments when we trusted Him instead of ourselves or something else. Wow.