Thirsty for God

You have to be hungry first. You have to be thirsty first.

You won’t truly appreciate a feast unless you’re really hungry. You won’t enjoy a cool drink of water unless you’ve been thirsty for a long time.

It’s the same with God.

The people who flocked to Jesus where the hungry and thirsty people. The fat, full, and bloated don’t come to God, the thirsty do.

You must be thirsty before you can really drink.

Jesus: Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

The woman: Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty…

God will put you in circumstances that starve you. He will take away your normal food and drink. He does this because he loves you. He does this to expose your deepest thirst. He does this to wake you up and make you alive. He has your best interest in mind. He will withhold the food, water, idols, and noise you normally fill yourself with until you feel the sweet pain of the deep thirst of your heart, the thirst that only God can quench.

You meet God when God brings you to the point that you cry out, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” God fills your thirst so that you can leave the old, empty wells behind.

Are you in the middle of a famine? Be thankful. God is starving you in order to truly feed you.

Less is More: Six Words

Ed Welch has written an article I want you to read about using less words:

Here is a basic rule of thumb. The more people are hurting – the more intense their emotions whatever the emotion might be (fear, shame, anger, despair) – the less they will be able to hear. I might think that I am offering words of life, and the words might actually be good and true words, but by the time I get to the seventh word, most people are hearing “blah, blah, blah.” Yes, there are some outstanding teachers of Scripture who can bring truth to hurting and stuck people in such a way that hearers are on the edge of their seats for . . . minutes at a time. Rapt. But none of us should assume that we are one of those people. This is why I have to say, at least once a week, “ugh, I’m sorry, I have been talking too much. Now I am going to try to just be quiet and listen.” Or, even better, to limit the word count – “I’m talking too much; your turn.” Six words.

Let me give a brief defense. I am not trying to demean the use of words. God speaks to us with words. I am certainly not opting for a near-wordless ministry. And I am not suggesting that we have very little to say. No, all the words of Scripture are good words, and there are lots of them. What I am arguing for are words designed for the person who is struggling and packaged in a way that makes them easy to hear and—this is important—easy to remember.

An effective communicator can take a complex subject, such as a person, and simplify that subject in such a way that there is no loss of meaning. Preachers are exhorted to be able to summarize their sermons in a sentence, and not a run-on sentence. Writers submit their manuscripts to publishers with a synopsis of their book in a sentence. If they can’t do it, they won’t be published.

Read the whole thing.

Grace Has Teeth, It Leaves a Permanent Mark

Some people are afraid of grace. They fear preaching grace will lead to loose living.

There is a better reason to be afraid of grace: grace has teeth. Grace has sharp teeth, teeth that leave a permanent mark on a man or a woman.

Grace will change you. You will still be you, but you will be a different you. The sharp teeth of grace will sink into you and rip away at cancerous flab you currently carry.

You shouldn’t be afraid of grace because it will lead to loose living. Toothless grace isn’t real grace. You should be afraid of grace because you’ll have toothmarks all over you, because you’ll never be the same. Grace leaves a permanent mark. Grace has teeth.

The Fuel of Mission

Mission begins with a kind of explosion of joy. The news that the rejected and crucified  Jesus is alive is something that cannot possibly be suppressed. It must be told. Who could be silent about such a fact? The mission of the Church in the pages of the New Testament is like the fallout from a vast explosion, a radioactive fallout which is not lethal but life-giving.

-Leslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

Questions for Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Let’s give thanks today.

Some questions to help surface the gratitude we will express today:

• WHAT are you most thankful for? Focus your thoughts on these things throughout the day.

• WHO are you thankful to, who deserves the credit? Enjoy God and these people today.

• HOW will you express this thanks today? There are many ways to express gratitude, decide how you will say thanks today.

Good Writing

Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere, so start by getting something–anything–down on paper. One friend says that the first draft is the down draft–you get it down. The second draft is the up draft–you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth to see if it’s loose or cramped or decayed or even, God help us, healthy.

Anne Lamott

Play Offense and Defense (The Christian Life is Like a Football Game)

I think it’s helpful to think of the Christian life like a football game. To win a football game you have to do two things: play good offense and play good defense. Your goal on offense is to score a lot of points. Your goal on defense is to not let the other team score points and to get back on offense as quickly as possible.

Defense

As Psalm 1 orients us to the Christian life, it puts us on defense first:

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

The first thing the psalm does is give us a defensive strategy—it first tells us what to say “no” to. The psalm tells us what we must not allow to gain any yardage in our life: the counsel of the wicked, the way of sinners, and the seat of scoffers. In short, we are playing defense against sin. Sin is a Running Back that wants to run up a 100 yard game on us today. Good defense knows the Running Back’s number, knows his favorite plays, and aims to tackle the Running Back for a loss of yardage and minimize his impact on the game.

Offense

Next, Psalm 1 puts us on offense:

but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

This psalm’s offensive strategy is representative of the entire biblical playbook: delight in God and heed God’s voice. To march the ball down the field you don’t need superior athleticism and trick plays. The play calling is simple: delight in God, know God, love God, adore God, trust God; believe his voice written down in the Scriptures, pay attention to his voice over all other voices, meditate on the good news that that constantly proceeds from God’s mouth and live accordingly.

Gameday

Today, like everyday, is Gameday. The game just started. The ball was just snapped, a Running Back named “Anxious Thoughts” received the handoff and is charging your direction. Where are you? You’re on defense. Don’t give Anxious Thoughts an inch, knock him down as hard as you can and as quick as you can. Next play. The starting Quarterback, named “Condemnation”, drops back with the ball. He spots a Wide Receiver, named “Guilt & Shame”, open downfield. Your job: sack the Quarterback, don’t let him throw that pass.

There’s deep wisdom in Psalm 1. Like it or not, you will begin most days on defense. The goal is to try to hold the world, the flesh, and the devil to just 3 downs and to force a punt on 4th down.

Now you’re on offense. You are not alone. God is for you, God is with you, God is talking to you. Your playbook is more than adequate, God has painstakingly written down everything he wants you to know and do. The game is God’s. He recruited you to play your particular position at this particular time in human history. Trust him. Delight in him. You already have his approval, Jesus took care of that. Understand that the game is his and the game is already won. Enjoy God, focus in on his voice above all others, and run fast down the field doing what God recruited you to do with your life. Score as many points as you can. Use your talents. Give God all the glory, and revel in the joy of it all.

You have to play both ways in the Christian life. You need good offense and good defense. The key is to always know where you’re at on the field, to know if you’re playing offense or defense and to play your guts out until the final whistle blows.

He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers. -Psalm 1:3

5-10 Must-Read Books For Your Church

Let’s pretend you had the job of creating a list of 5-10 books that you want everyone in your church to read. Let’s imagine that the majority of the people in your church read the books and that these 5-10 books radically shape the culture of your church. What 5-10 books would you put on the list?

Whether you’re a pastor or a layperson, please share you list. I think it will be fun and helpful for all of us to read your list. These lists will vary based on your theology, values, and context. What 5-10 books would you put on the list?

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Read Books That Stab You

I think we ought to only read the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for?… we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.

-Franz Kafka, Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors

________ Reigns

________ reigns.

You must decide what you really believe. You must decide how you fill in the blank.

The Bible fills in the blank like this:

“The Lord reigns” -Psalm 97:1.

What does your behavior reveal about how you’ve filled in the blank?

• Fear reigns?
• Difficult circumstances reign?
• An enemy reigns?
• The economy reigns?
• Regret reigns?
• You reign?
• Despair reigns?

You have to decide what you really believe. You have to decide how you will fill in the blank. You have to decide who, or what, you believe sits on the throne.

Fill in the blank: __________ reigns.