Everyday Difference

 “Make a life-giving difference in your everyday world.” That was the answer to the question I had never even realized I needed to ask: What do you want to do with your life?

As a man of faith, and family it can be really easy to pour my everything into those two things. But the simple and honest reality is I am more than a man of faith; and I more than a husband, Dad, son, brother, etc.. The two inform a major piece of me, maybe even the majority of me, but I am more—and so are you.

I mess this up a lot. There are entire days that meander by with my having made almost no difference for anyone whatsoever. Especially if I get caught in the self-reflective trap that’s so easy to slog my way into on occasion. 

However, what I really want is to leave everyday a little better because I showed up. I want every room to be a little brighter because I brought love there with me. I want everyone to know they are important.

I get it wrong a lot. I’m still learning a lot about this.  But I know my life is aimed at something bigger than I’m able to do on my own. I know I want to learn a little more, love a little more, and live a little more.

I want to do all of it in the company of the people who mean the most to me—and I want to invite as many as possible into this same adventure. High-fives, handshakes, and attaboys are the tip of the ice-berg. Let’s aim at the everyday difference we can leave in our wake when we love everyone the right way.

Let’s lay down our conditions. Let’s set aside stereotypes, hasty generalizations, and the mind numbing polarization that frankly most of us grew tired of months ago. Let’s offer a kind word, a neighborly gesture, and strong hand to those who need us.

Let’s get where we’re going in the glad company of everyone around us. Let’s do it together. Let’s make an everyday difference. What are we waiting for? 

August 20 - Enter Joy

Matthew 25:14-30

His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ (Matthew 25:23 ESV)

We know joy as a feeling. But what if it was more than that? What if joy was a place too? What if the feeling we have come to know as joy is in fact only a small reflection of a place that we all have the chance to one day live in. I believe joy might be the single greatest word in the English language we could use to describe Heaven.

Jesus' teaching of the parable of ten talents points out several practical life lessons. It also sheds some light on what Christians can expect in the next life. Those who follow Jesus will indeed be one day escorted into the Joy of the Master.

I remember what it was like as a small boy to please my father. It was wonderful. Eternal life with the Master must be something like that. I think it will be like the inexhaustible notion of a job-well-done wrapped in the blissful affection of a loving parent doting on a favored child. It will be joy. One day all who have faithfully followed and served will enter joy.

January 5 - Family Tree

Read: Mathew 1: 1-17

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba! Father! The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:14-17 ESV)

Family can be a tricky thing. Sometimes personal genealogies are really difficult to understand or research. One of the unique qualities of the Old Testament is the staggering amount of detail it provides about the life of the Jews and their relationship with God. This is the people God chose to use bring the Messiah, Jesus, into the world.

The insight into the lives and times of these people is incredibly encouraging. It can speak volumes into our lives today. Each were imperfect. Some were deeply flawed. Many of them made an incredible turn around to pursue life with God. Abraham was at times a coward. Rahab was a prostitute turned follower of God. David, who is often called a "man after God's own heart" was a murdering adulterer. And these are just three of the better known examples in Jesus' family tree.

What does your family tree look like? What are the stories? What are the failures? Successes? Sometimes we romanticize the bad in our family. Sometimes we are misinformed. And for many people, they just don't know the details of their family history.

Jesus was perfect. He lived, served, died, and rose again without sin. But he was born into a family line that was anything but perfect. Our families are all far from perfect, but we can be adopted as sons of God, what the Bible calls "coheirs with Christ." This is not to discount the heritage we may enjoy (or not enjoy) here, but so that we can be adopted into the family of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was hung on a tree so you and I could be part of his eternal family tree.

January 4 - Promised Son

Read: Genesis 21 and 22

I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her. But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year. The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and The Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. (Genesis 17:16, 21; 21:1 ESV)

He said, Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, My father! And he said, Here am I, my son. He said, Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. So they went both of them together. And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord , because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice. (Genesis 22:2, 7, 8, 15-18 ESV)

God demonstrated his love for Abraham by promising him a son; but then—in what seems to be a strange twist—God asks Abraham to take his son to a mountaintop and sacrifice him. Abraham was an old man by the time Isaac was born. His wife Sarah had already passed her natural season for child birth. Abraham follows the heart of God in faith. Isaac himself willingly complies with the will of his father.

All of this points ahead to Jesus. God, loved his creation so much that He sent a promised son, His only begotten son. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, willingly complied with the Father. Whereas Isaac was spared upon the mountain by divine intervention, Jesus was not. Instead Jesus became our divine intervention to spare us from the fate of eternal damnation.

Sometimes it is hard to hold on to the promises we feel that God has put in our heart. God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows our flaws, frustrations, and failures. He himself intervened for us for a promised deliverance. Whatever you feel God has promised you in your heart, hold on to it. Hold true to it. Do not waiver. Show the faith of Abraham and Isaac. Jesus is worth it.

January 3 - Father Abraham

Read: Genesis 12, 17

I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Genesis 12:3 ESV)

God said, No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. (Genesis 17:19 ESV)

I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near: a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel; it shall crush the forehead of Moab and break down all the sons of Sheth. (Numbers 24:17 ESV)

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. (Genesis 49:10 ESV)

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, (Matthew 1:1, 2 ESV)

Abraham is often called the father of faith. Rightly so. God hand picked him to begin the family line of the Jews, and specifically the Messiah. Abraham believed in God's promise that he would have a son, even in his old age, and God saw his faithful disposition as righteousness.

Jesus fulfilled God's promise to Abraham. He is the blessing to the whole world. He is the embodiment of God's everlasting covenant. Jesus is the star and scepter rising out of Israel. The promised son rising from a promised people to deliver God's promised redemptive work to mankind. The rule is his, the glory is his, and the effort is his alone. What an amazing portrait the Bible paints across history to show God's blessed work to free his people from the clutches of sin and death.

Just as Jesus is the promised son, so are those who have been saved the promised sons of Father Abraham. A work of faith that reaches across millennia to prove God's prophetic grace for all mankind.

Me Lately

Life has been good lately. Incredibly good. And while these first couple of weeks of parenthood have come with unique challenges, there is a level of joy to be found in it all that is profound beyond description. Everything about everything now seems to happen from a new point of view. How I plan my day, what I will do, where I will go, and practically everything I encounter, accomplish, or attempt now has direct bearing on this new little person in my life. Each act carries significance. And here I must venture forth with care. My wants, needs, dreams, passions, and frivolities now assert themselves wholesale upon the life of someone who cannot yet want and dream for themselves.

While I have in married life, these last five years, attempted to allow the needs and wants of my beautiful wife to run parallel and at times supersede mine own, the simplest truth is that I am, and am likely to remain, a fairly flawed individual for the foreseeable future. Where then can I draw strength to face my fears, curtail my iniquities, and plunge ahead into devotion to those deeply deserving of my most strenuous devotion? God alone.

As I lie in bed holding my sweet little son, I marvel at the beauty of this exquisite creation. I wonder, just the same, how that God--who's love and compassion has never been tempered with insecurity, jealousy, or abject stupidity; how much more does he look at you, me, and all of his precious children and just stare like only a father can?

He must love us in ways that we will never imagine, understand, or behold.