Accents. Life is bright more often than we think. The glow of fellowship after a meal, the warmth of coming home to a friendly place, going to sleep knowing God has got your back and things are well with you.  Seeing friends who are glad to see you and you them. That’s some of the wonderful things we gather to ourselves when we know God. Let’s not forget the glow of the goodness of God in the midst of all the distressing circumstances around us.

i was in a meeting yesterday and i noticed there was much talk about the things that might not be, the fear of what might not happen, or the fear of the bad which might happen. i noticed the lifestyle of deep concern over the phrase, “might be”, or “might not be”. i realized people don’t take out insurance because of the good things that might happen. All the same, it’s true, unkind things can and do happen to us all, but what about the good things which come our way also, what about the bad things which didn’t happen? There are many bright things in my life and i was thinking how easily i forget those times.

What bright moments have been salted into your day this week?

In the news a while back there was a story about a young man on a motorcycle who was in an accident and became pinned underneath the burning car. The bystanders rallied together and literally lifted the car off of the man then pulled him free. Presently he’s alive and recovering. That certainly was a bright moment, but how about the smaller ones, little things, the smell and flavor of your coffee or tea this morning? Fresh baked brownies, the leather smell of a sports car, being warm when the snow is blowing outside, the bird that came and sang outside your window? The phone call you got from someone who didn’t want anything from you and was just calling to say “hello, how are you?”? Maybe the view you had of the sun rising across the other side of a pasture, or the laughter of children playing? All of those are things worth remembering as well as the negative accents. It’s not like we should forget anything that wasn’t good which happened to us, after all, we don’t grow and mature when everything we do is a success. But let’s take a moment to remember the good times, the pleasant moments, the colorful accents of our days.

When i was growing up my sister had an old Brownie camera, and then one Christmas she got a Polaroid. You know, the one which, after you take a picture, it slides out the film that develops right in front of your eyes. i think i’ve got thousands and thousands of Polaroid pictures in my head – the time the neighbor boys, myself and my brother played football all afternoon. In my head is a snap shot of us all laughing, dirty, skinned up, but laughing. Forever in my mind as a good time. Or my son’s favorite hunting dog when he tree’d his first racoon. i’ve got a snap shot in my head of that moment! i can still see the pleasure on my son’s face and the dog’s face. Or my wife’s eyes reflecting in the stripe of sun light coming through the shades in the morning.

Leviticus 23:40 has a Polaroid picture in it of a bright accent. “And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook;” Hmmmm, beautiful trees. Does just saying that inspire a picture in your mind? It’s as if the Lord is pointing out beauty. He calls them “beautiful trees”. Do we notice? Do you remember the big old tree in the park, or behind your house? The bark, the leaves, the shade? Remember how it looked and when you played near it or in it? Can you see it? All through the Bible God speaks of beautiful things, like He’s pointing them out for us to notice. God does not tell us things or point things out to us just so we can know. “Seeing” is very different than “purposefully taking note”, and then there is the idea of “seeing” meaning “to look with eyes wide open in amazement”. Can you see? Take note of beautiful words like in Genesis 49:21, beautiful cities in Deuteronomy 6:10, beautiful houses in Deuteronomy 8:12, beautiful children, women, or men, Queen Vashti in Esther 1:11, “was beautiful to behold”. Psalms says the city of our God is beautiful the way it is positioned, that praise is beautiful, that holiness not only is itself beautiful but make us beautiful, and that God makes all things beautiful in its time. God points out to us that Moses was a beautiful child. 1 Peter 3:5 speaks of a beauty not necessarily seen with our eyes, it speaks of an inner beauty that was gentle and gracious. Colossians 3:11-12 reveals to us that the glory-strength God gives, is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.

What is beautiful in your life? All through out the Bible, God is pointing out these types of things that we would take notice of the beautiful, the bright, the accented, His highlights. Star filled skies, sun rise, sun set, little girls eyes, seasons – like winter and spring, summer and fall, holidays, eating together, good companionship, the smell of the forest and the flowers, fresh cut lawns, evenings on the front porch, or the spiritual flavor of faith and a promise. Do we notice that God is highlighting those things to us, or are we so neck deep in the mire of the world we constantly miss the bright and beautiful around us? The Lord set the Proverbs 31 woman as a standard of beauty … her accents are a glowing luster of goodness.

God hasn’t invited us into a disorderly, unkempt life but into something holy and beautiful—as beautiful on the inside as the outside. All the things around us which God has made beautiful and bright, none compares to Jesus. Psalms 50:1-2, “The Mighty One, God the Lord, Has spoken and called the earth From the rising of the sun to its going down. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God will shine forth.”

He is called “the perfection of beauty”. He is more beautiful than flowers, and according to God, as far as earthly things go, flowers take the cake. Do you notice? What kind of snap-shots to you have of the beautiful and bright things in your life?

In Psalms 90:17 we are beautiful when the beauty of the Lord is upon us. Isaiah 28:5: The Lord, Himself, will be our crown of glory and beauty.

Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.”

Amid the media barrage of bad news, vicious circumstances, and questionable reporting, let’s lean into Jesus, think on the bright and beautiful things around us. Remember the memories you’ve got of good times, good friends, good fellowship, worship and praise. Like Philippians 4:8 says at the end, “…think on these things”.

What do you think?

i’m Social Porter with Living In His Name Ministries.

All my life, at least as far as i’m concerned, i’ve felt misunderstood. What is even more interesting is that among many Christians i have met, i don’t know it but i’m fairly certain, many also feel largely misunderstood. What is up with that? It seems no matter how much i try, other people just don’t get me, and i’m left feeling pretty sad. Can you relate?

What started this ponderance upon being misunderstood actually began in a different conversation concerning belonging and connecting, and even though most say they belong and connect, at least somewhere, by far and large, if you’re allowed to ask and given an honest answer, those same people can’t actually tell what belonging and connecting mean, and they themselves don’t actually feel like they belong anywhere. Why? After many conversations i’ve also concluded that more people than i imagine feel largely misunderstood. There’s grief in it. The unbelonging and unconnected quietly suffer repeated longing for a connection that almost happened but didn’t. It’s kind of like being witnessed but without translation.

The phrase “the weight of being misunderstood” captures one of the quietest, heaviest burdens a person can carry. It’s not dramatic or loud like anger or grief — one author describe it as more like an invisible backpack you never asked for, one that grows more dense every time you realize your words, actions, or intentions landed somewhere entirely different from where you meant them to. Even in a room full of people, sometimes it feels like there’s this private exile where no one quite sees the version of you that actually exists. The more you try to clarify, the more tangled it all gets — i think it’s like trying to untie a knot with gloves on. And to make matters worse, people tend to fill silences with their own assumptions, fears, or stories, and your reality gets overwritten. We can try and reframe ourselves but our reframing doesn’t erase the immediate, human cost: the loneliness, the fatigue, and the temptation to just go quiet forever. i have been that lonely, tired person who just went quiet for a large part of my life. Yet God intervenes, He steps in. Thank you Jesus.

Being misunderstood comes with weights not wings. What will we do with that? Because being indifferent doesn’t actually solve the problem, and caring too much just makes us needy and will break us in half eventually. Being misunderstood is actually quite painful, it strikes at our core need to be seen, known, and accepted for who we really are, and when we aren’t seen, it triggers a whole cascade of difficult feelings to deal with. If our identity is not in Christ, well, then, who are you?

There is another side to the weight of being misunderstood that is strictly within our own responsibility and control, and that is when being misunderstood drives an addiction in us to be seen, the desire to be recognized and respected, to be important, to be admired and celebrated beyond us being wounded, it now becomes a driving need. We can be led by the Spirit, Luke 4, or be driven by darkness, Luke 8:29. Scripture says in Matthew 6 that “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly”, and when we turn the weight of being misunderstood into taking action for ourselves it can be very destructive. Kathryn Kulman once said, “We want the reward without acting in secret before God; we want the platform without the prayer life, we want the nobility without brokenness, and honor without humility.” Sitting in our sad place feeling alone and misunderstood is one thing, but when we decide to m-a-k-e people notice us, m-a-k-e people listen, and m-a-k-e them understand, little by little our desperation begins to sink our boat. Think! Leah was unloved and overlooked, Hagar was cast out and forgotten, Rahab was labeled by her past. All were misunderstood. It hurt. It gave them grief. But God has a better idea.

Maybe our propensity for feeling misunderstood is why God is also known as El Roi, God who sees me. The Biblical Counseling Coalition has this to say: “Over and over again, in the grand narrative of the Bible, God reveals Himself as the God who sees us personally and intimately, but the first time He reassures a struggler with this truth, she uses a new name for Him that seals this attribute as an unchangeable part of our understanding of God: El Roi.

Through Hagar’s story of pain and desperation, found in Genesis 16, God reveals Himself to be the One who knows us intimately, seeing our sorrows and struggles and caring about the specific details of our lives in ways that move Him. For Hagar, when life was as desperate as it could get, God saw her. It is more important that God sees us than all the platforms and titles in the universe. It is more important God understands us than if the whole world suddenly understood. For Hagar this was not the “seeing” like merely being observed, but rather, this was a “seeing” of inestimable, limitless love. God saw Hagar and Hagar knew she was seen. God saw her for who she was and God El Roi was gracious and kind to her by making her to know she was seen. Her despair of being completely unknown had turned into something amazing and new. El Roi, God who sees me made Himself known to her.

When she realized the King of the Universe knew her and saw her, she no longer needed to carry the invisible backpack full of the weight of being misunderstood. You know of course, on some low level, we are choosing to let the backpack ride. She saw with new eyes, her heart was strengthened, and courage replaced her bitterness, fear, and disappointment.

Don’t even let yourself blow off Hagar’s story because it’s Old Testament. Romans 15:4, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope”. Let us take courage from the story of Hagar and her encounter with El Roi, God who sees me. Hagar’s hope can become ours by the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus.

And here’s a great angle to see this. Jesus was foreshadowed in Hagars story that she was seen by El Roi, and then Jesus came to us and got eye to eye with all mankind, all at once. For the first time in history God came to us and got eyelevel for one of several reason but this one in particular: so we would know God sees us. Jesus foreshadowed in Genesis 16 as being El Roi for one person, and then Jesus, getting eye level with us, being El Roi once and for all forever in the New Testament. Do you see it?

What if we decided that it was enough for us to be seen and understood by God, even if we’ve been misunderstood all our lives? God doesn’t misunderstand us, He sees us perfectly and clearly and loves us regardless of all the reasons we think He shouldn’t. It’s your lucky day! God didn’t ask you if it was ok to understand you and get eye to eye with you and love you beyond the vanishing point.

Would you be willing for God to break through a dark place in your life? Would you be willing to give up that invisible backpack of all your reasons to isolate, be sad and overwhelmed in feeling so completely misunderstood, there sitting on the back porch, staring at the garden and beyond, just wishing things were different? God can take your burden. Let…It….Go! Give Him your long woundedness of being misunderstood. Matthew 11:28, “Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

i’ll go with you on getting free if you want cause i’m in the same boat. Let us daily live in the reality that we are seen and known by Jesus, He’s the one who truly matters the most. El Roi, God who sees me.

I’m Social Porter for Living In His Name Ministries.

Psalm 32:7, “You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah”

Psalm 46:1, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of need.”

John 16:33, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Trouble. Oh man, there’s enough of that going around for everyone, everywhere a thousand times over, and sometimes it comes in singles, or triplets, and other times in droves and herds.

From the small trifling town of Greatly there was the Trouble family, making the Greatly Trouble family a most well established clan in the area. There was Big Trouble who was married to Pretty Petty Trouble, and they had a child who’s name was More Trouble. Pretty Petty Trouble also had a sister, and therefore a niece named Even Worse Trouble, whom they called “Even” for short. The Trouble family were always bad news, no one was glad to see them and all sighed the sigh of great relief when they left the party. They were always in the middle of some turmoil, in fact, they seemed to literally breathe drama, and they were constantly in the middle of arduous uncertainties. Oh yes, the arduous uncertainties.

There is a subtle dread to even saying, “arduous uncertainties”.

The Bible is absolutely filled with stories of people who faced arduous uncertainties — long, grueling periods of not knowing what would happen next. It seemed to involve prolonged waiting, intense trials, and what appeared to be even silence from God, or what i would call “life altering unknowns” which severely tested their faith. So, for you and i, what will we do in the middle of our times and seasons of arduous uncertainties? And it’s real easy to quote someone a bible verse or two that, if they’d just believe this or that, their troubles would be over. Maybe they are technically correct, but often their scripture quoting is really hard to do. Jobs friends did that and Job called his friends actually no friends at all and the worst counselors there ever was. Job 16:2. But i tell ya’, when we are in the middle of a terrible storm, the mast has snapped, and God appears to be asleep, the miracle that is about to happen doesn’t look much like a miracle until it happens.

“Arduous” meaning steep, difficult, and requiring strenuous effort, and “uncertainty” is the lack of sure knowledge concerning the future outcome of something. It is not just not knowing, but suffering through the not-knowing over time, often with high personal stakes. In other words, if things don’t go like i hope and God doesn’t come through like i wish, i am doooooomed.

We love to quote Psalm 116:2, “Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live“, which is absolutely true, but in the late hours between awake and asleep, we toss and turn and worry to God. We know Jesus is the answer, but actually trusting God to supply help to us in our time of need and us actually coming to full rest in that … Well, yea, that’s another thing in itself.

Many are wholly disturbed in their inner most person. Yes, arduous uncertainties sift through our thoughts and dreams. We love to quote Romans 10:12, “… for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him“, which is absolutely true, yet, there we are in the mirror with worry lines on our down turned faces.

The idea of arduous uncertainties captures seasons where God’s promises seem distant or impossible — like Abraham waited decades for a child, Joseph seeming he would likely perish in prison, regardless of prophetic dreams, and the longer he was there the farther away the possibilities of those dreams would come true. The Israelites wandering 40 years in the wilderness even though God made daily provision, yet they constantly doubted about the promised land, and the longer they were in the wilderness, the farther away the idea of promised land became.  i’ve had my share of arduous uncertainties, but i need to say, 40 years, 40 years! of not merely uncertainty but arduous uncertainty is beyond my ability to even imagine.

For us today, arduous uncertainties might appear as years of job instability, on going chronic illness possibly without diagnosis, many in what i would call “relational limbo”, even global crisis that just drags on and on. The idea of the phrase captures pretty well seasons where God’s promises seem fairly distant or even impossible. Friends, if God said it, we can stand on it.

But think, what is the end result if we trust God as He asked? i believe it all builds resilience, and profoundly builds faith. When clarity is absent, when we don’t know what tomorrow brings, the testing refines our character through sustained pressure. The arduous uncertainties strip away any illusions of control we might have had and builds a deeper understanding of our absolute dependence on God for growth and fulfillment in Christ beyond what we were, of ourselves, able to imagine.

In those long trials, through thick and thin, beyond high and low, we come to see Proverbs 3:5-6 as one of our stabilizers, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart; and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths.”

One author wrote, “If we don’t learn how to look to God and rely on God, it will be difficult to see the work God does in us, and if we can’t see these things, then the matter of whether or not God exists, whether or not He guides everything in our lives, will, in the depths of our heart, will likely always end with a question mark. Not with a period or an exclamation mark but a question. If, by doubt, distraction, or becoming mired in arduous uncertainties, if we don’t allow our own true belief in God to rise, then the question marks will forever be there with everything God does, and there will be no periods.

God’s absolute, infinite goodness is everywhere. He is not influenced by any people, events, or things, or other distracting elements of this life which we habitually give more power to. As long as we truly rely on God, He will be our ever-present help. It may take a while of struggling forward in faith, but stand firm, He was our ever present help in the beginning, He is our ever present help in the now, and he will be our ever present help in the future. Just as the Bible said, Psalm 18:2, and believe this, “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” That is the truth and i’m not lying. Jesus is Lord and there is not another.

Let us get rid of the question mark at the end of our thoughts about God’s goodness and trustworthiness, and let Him be who He is: God.

i’m Social Porter with Living In His Name Ministries

[Chaplain Steve Welborn spoke on this topic, and i thought it was very relevant for today]

Poverty is one thing, but being so greedy we’re too poor to pay attention? Yea, that is another story. Seeing poverty coupled with greed paints a picture of the heart and soul of many in our world today who seem totally inspired by the without-Jesus corrupt world we live in. Yea, inspired by being godless. If being godless is an inspiration then it is not inspiration at all. Ridiculous! The flashing lights, “have it your way! You rule” advertisements, we are lost in the dazzle, the glowing images in clothing stores implying “if you had this shirt or that dress you’d be amazing and everyone would want you!”

C’mon friends, put on your thinking cap and think. Living our lives holding Jesus as central to all we do flips worldly ideas upside down: It’s not, not, not about self-promotion but self-denial, where righteous exaltation comes from the idea of “humility comes before honor”, or, Jesus comes before our wants and desires. If your hunger for needing a person or church system to validate you is always working in your character, know that it likely stems from insecurity or comparison, and could easily veer into increasing permissiveness and even immorality. What fertile ground are we rooted in? If it’s rooted in glorifying God and serving others, it’s a healthy part of faith. Look, Jesus Himself sought glory from the Father, showing it’s not the desire that’s wrong, but the source and spirit behind it. John 17:1-5, “When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”

To reiterate, it’s not desire that is wrong but the object of desire, and don’t even do that black and white thinking thing, letting yourself think all objects of desire are twisted because many of us have a longing, a desire to know Jesus, so desire isn’t the problem. Let us use our discernment to see this correctly. When any person or object becomes competitive with God, ahh, now it is called idolatry and sin. When the object of my desire is all about counting congregation size with a heart to build an empire, as in those lost in church mega-world, when the object of my desire gives power to my spirit over my flesh, giving power to my greed to be more than i am in order to claim a title, platform, or get a book deal, right there we’ve got a problem. It is the face of greed and it will drive us, not lead us but drive us to become those whom God considers, “poor”. In Mark 4 Jesus was led, in Mark 8 the demonized man was driven. Faith leads — greed drives.

Thus, we come to the “poverty of greed”, and what is at the root. i love giving surveys so i went around asking the question: “what is at the heart of the poverty of greed?” The following are some of the replies: Byron Wicker wrote, it is fear and the lack of trusting that God is enough and sufficient. i say: That same fear and lack of trust will slowly drive us into abject poverty of spirit, thinking, and eventually in our body, possible even to our own demise. Eugene Peterson said, “greed is the assumption that everything is for me and about me.” Henry Nouwen wrote “greed is rooted in the fear of not having enough.” An anonymous reply was, Greed is the delight of self-sufficiency and reliance over simple contentment of Grace. Nate Seabury wrote, “greed is disordered love, trusting and craving something other than God for security, joy, and identity.”

The poverty of greed, is the gnawing need growing in our arduous uncertainties, that eventually make us live as those who are called “poor” and “poverty stricken”.

Sharing your bread with the poor, is a kindness indeed, but we truely do need to have some bread to share. Got bread to share?

Those who are poor, are not as those who don’t have stuff, but those who are poor in spirit, wearing too big shame clothes, and the worn out shoes of walking far but never getting anywhere, tired of being tired, from running against the wind, and feeling like everything is closing in.

Here are some more things i believe are firmly at the root of the “poverty of greed”. The fear of not being seen so i act out making sure others see me; Fear of not being heard so i watch YouTube preachers in order to get cool stuff to say and pray, then i repeat it all in my small group meetings. And all the people said together, “Wow!”; It is fear that God doesn’t love us like He says, so i turn into a constant Debbie-downer; Fear of not having value and so i shoulder my way into relationships which no one asked me to participate in. i want, i want, i want, gimme, gimme, gimme, but then we are confronted by the “i shall not want” of Psalm 23. Greed isn’t merely about wanting more, oh no — it also stems from fear of losing control, and fear of what lies ahead; it’s an act of self-protection rooted in the fear that God will not provide, and, i say, the poverty of greed is also rooted in supremely misplaced trust in, what i call, “accumulated resentments”. We all need to know that accumulated resentment always wants vindication, and all that accumulated resentment, piled up, stinking and steaming, one on top of another will drive us to the poor house in our mind and spirit.

Again, friends, in order to share our bread with the poor, we must have some bread to share. How are we going to do that? We say we know the answer but how often do we humbly act like it? Clement of Alexandria wrote: “poverty of greed is one of the cruelest ironies in human experience: the more fiercely someone chases endless accumulation, the more profoundly impoverished they become—not in wallet, but in everything that actually makes a life feel rich.” Imagine someone with big barns, many followers, and big congregations that all just keep expanding to look like mega-church, for mega-people, singing mega-worship songs, with a mega-worship band, doing mega-things for mega-reasons, ensnaring people by asking them to pledge loyalty to their denomination. Looks more like taking slaves in a way, except it seems every new gain sharpens the bottomless hunger for the next one. The pleasure mill doesn’t just spin, it literally accelerates. Those hungry mega-believers may look like abundance on the outside but they often suffer from chronic scarcity on the inside: there is never enough.

Don’t you know greed lives in the future of “what if”, or in the past, the fear of what might be lost, but is rarely actually present and in the room. True rest requires we trust God, but the poverty of greed whispers you don’t trust Him and then anxiety becomes your baseline.

Proverbs 30:15-16, “The leech has two daughters: Give and Give, more and more. Three things are never satisfied, yes four which never say, “Enough”:

hell, the barren womb, the land never satisfied with water, and the fire that never says, “Enough.”

i think — when “more” is the only measurement left, i don’t know this but i do believe it, life flattens into an empty, pointless single dimension. Seneca, a philosopher from a very long time ago captured the poverty of greed perfectly: “It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, THAT is poor. They end up with full hands and empty spirits.”

We need Jesus really bad.

If we don’t trust God to supply all our needs according to His riches in glory, then the swirling, downward whirlpool of desperation is ever drawing closer to us. And you know the saddest part? Most people don’t notice they’re living in it until the hunger has already eaten up everything else.

We simply must choose and we must be responsible for our choices. Trust God or not? Believe God or not? Friends, we’re down to the wire and the line of choosing is bearing down upon us. What say ye?

Isaiah 49:4, “I replied, “But my work seems so useless! I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose. Yet I leave it all in the LORD’s hand; I will trust God for my reward.”

i’m Social Porter for Living in His Name Ministries

We are more than circumstance. Who we are is no simple thing. Each of us is a living constellation of habits, desires, notions, memories, all shaped by the circumstances of how we’ve lived and what we’ve been through; blood, money, knowledge, marriage, death, discovery, who we serve and don’t serve, where we came from, where we’re going to, who we meet, and what we sacrifice. Literarily that all has a nice flow, but we are more than simply circumstances, we have free will and we choose. Don’t let yourself sink into being circumstantial. Above all that circumstance which shapes us, most importantly God has the final say in how we are defined. God, not the fallen world. i like that verbal visualization, “a living constellation”. Can you see it?

Knowing “we are” and having a clue as to where we are in Christ is of penultimate importance. The faith we walk in is largely governed by the establishing of who we are, as we are, what we are, and where we are according to God. Get that? According to God, not men, but God. i have come to believe more than a little twisted theology in the Body of Christ stems from a lack of identity, a misunderstanding of our identity, or the simple disbelief that our standing in Christ is real. We are what? And where are we? Today we’ll start with “we are”, as in who are we and who does God say we are?. Catch those three: lack of identity, misunderstanding of identity, and simple disbelief.

Foundationally, if we are believers, then, right off the bat, we are God’s image and reflection bearers, Genesis 1:26, made similar to God in fashion and form, more than merely how we look, but also how we are. We are placed, on purpose, in a broken yet still-beautiful world. Made from dust yet breathed into by the Holy Spirit and we carry eternal value and “inevitable mortality”, which is a nice way of saying we’re all going to die at some point, all that in the same frame. Did you see that? If it were anyone else saying such a thing other than God it would be oxymoronic, or seemingly self-contradictory. No one but God can create such a thing as having eternal value yet inevitable mortality in the same frame. Here it is again: We are living in this body that is inclined to corruption yet carry eternal value because of Jesus, all in the same frame.

That’s an awfully big picture, but true non-the-less. We are here, in this place we live and we are loved: simultaneously crowned with glory and honor, defined by Psalm 8:5, and suffer a fallen nature which is intrinsic to our flesh. Romans 6:23, ” For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Before Christ we were curved inward, so to speak, no choice but to be enslaved to sin and death, and though we are now free, we still struggle against our flesh and the influence of this fallen world. Da’ struggle be real my friend. Every human heart is a battlefield where the image and reflection of God wrestles against the image and reflection of Adam. Everyone looks so good at church, making all the right words, wearing all the right postures, yet we can not begin to fathom the war going on in each person.

“We are” is a phrase about who we are, as in 1 Corinthians 3:9a, “For we are laborers together with God“. When i think about the phrase “We are”, and the biblically famous reply of young Samuel in 1 Samuel “here i am”, to me, it’s deceptively simple, after all, it’s only two or three words, yet it carries layers of meaning across language related, time honored, literary, cultural, and philosophical contexts. Those two or three little words carry so much momentum. Jesus claimed His identity and equality with the Father in John 10:30 when He said, “I and the Father are one“, and He prayed in John 17:11 that believers “may be one, even as we are one“.

The phrases “we are”, “here i am” or “i am here” gained legendary status in children’s literature through Dr. Seuss’s 1954 book Horton Hears a Who!. In the story, the tiny inhabitants of Who-ville chant, “We are here! We are here! We are here!” to prove their existence to the larger world, which can’t see or hear them. Horton the elephant protects their speck-of-dust world, embodying the moral: “A person is a person, no matter how small.”

Lately, i’ve run into believer after believer who, at their core, feel small, unseen, unheard, and unnecessary. Sure, their mouths claim the promises of belonging and connecting to God and the body of Christ, they quote scripture, pray, and all the necessary elements of our faith… but in the late night, in the gray place between awake and asleep, often overshadowed by doubt and unbelief, they are at war within themselves as to their identity, as God sees them. Who are you? Have you looked up to see how God sees you?

In the mean time, i know the following is probably a little too detailed, but go with me and try it. Let’s dissect this little thing, “we are” a moment: 1^st word “We” – it is a first person plural pronoun, implying collectively “us” as a group identity. i use the word “we” to refer to some sort of collective unity or probably shared experiences rather than individualism, with our nation having veered far away from recognizing community to only recognizing the individual. i think our country has nearly lost the “we” which all of us have loved so much. This next is very interesting to me. It is the verb “Are” – which is present tense of a one of a kind verb, “to be”, often translated as the past/present/future “I AM” of Genesis 17:1. According to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, or TDNT, the verb “to be” is affirming existence or state of being. When God says “I AM” He is directly declaring and affirming His existence, emphasizing His continual presence in the past, present and future, all at the same time. Wow!

When God says He is, considering we are included in the beloved, then we are also. Because Jesus first lived, we are alive. In 1 John 3:1-2 we are adopted into God’s family and it’s not only a future hope, it is very present reality. Do you believe it? We either believe that or we don’t. There is no “sort of” or “kind of” to it. Is you is, or is you ain’t? 2 Corinthians 5:17 – “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” The Greek there literally says “new creation is” but i hear Paul repeatedly using “we are” type language for our identity. New creation is as in “we are” and the time is now.

Did you know Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3:9 that we are God’s fellow workers? Imagine, the King of the Universe includes us in His work but also calls us His fellow workers? 2 Corinthians 5:6 “So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.”

2 Corinthians 5:11, we are known to God. 2 Corinthians 5:20, we are ambassadors for Christ. Is that you? God says you are but what do you say?

So far, we are fellow workers, courageous, we are known, and we are ambassadors. That’s who God says we are, and if He said it, it’s true because He is true. Psalm 95:7, “For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice…” We are His, we belong to God. We may have terrible things in our past, but by the blood of Jesus, we who call on His name, we are free. Those things are dead, and if God has called them dead, then they are dead and there is no need, ever again, to dig them up just so we can reckon them dead all over again.

Isaiah 53:5, “we are healed”, Jeremiah 2:31, “we are free”, Jeremiah 7:10, “we are delivered”, Jeremiah 14:9, “we are called by your name”, Acts 3:15, “we are witnesses”, Romans 5:10, “we are reconciled”, Romans 8:37, “we are more than conquerors”, etc, etc. The list of who God says we are is a very, very long one. In spite of who God says we are, why oh why do we so often talk ourselves out of it? It’s a mystery to me.

Some of the following is a bit repetitive, but i think it is necessary to say as often as required until we get God’s word down in our head and heart. Romans 8:16-17 says we are children of God, not the offspring of the devil, but children of God, AND, we are also fellow heirs with Jesus Himself. In 1 Peter we are chosen, a royal priesthood, a holy nation made specially for God’s own possession. Every “we are” statement about believers is in the present indicative — it is “now” and is declaring what is already true because of communion with Christ, not what we must strive to become. We are who God says we are, present tense and a statement of fact. We are known, comforted, His workmanship or poetry, we are members of His house and we are surrounded by witnesses who testify we are who He says we are. We are waiting, we are in Him, of the truth, and from God. Gosh, in light of all that why oh why do we talk ourselves out of who God says He is and who God says we are? Say. Why is that? There are more “we are’s”, how many can you find?

How do you set the precedent for your day? For many years now, as has been my daily habit, i do my best to give God my first words every day, before i speak to anyone else. It is my idea of giving Him my first fruits. i’m sure you get it.

Jesus is the first person i speak to when i wake up, whether it’s the middle of the night or first thing in the morning, i make sure Jesus gets the, here it is — pre-eminence of recognition —. He is the first person i ask for help, my first source of information, etc. God gives us bread in the morning, Exodus 16:8, we exercise prayer in the morning, Psalm 5:3, I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning, Psalm 59:3. Friends, the Lord makes us a provision if we’ll have it.

Secondly, i present myself to the Lord first thing. Be ready to go. Exodus 34:2 “Be ready by morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to Me on the top of the mountain.” Do you see it? It was a call to a direct, personal and relational encounter with God in the morning. i figure if Moses should present himself to the Lord first thing, i should also.

You should know i don’t do these things always in that order, but i do try and accomplish these simple things in honor of the Lord everyday. In “honor of the Lord” is the point, always, and absolutely NONE of these things i do is about doing a sequence to make God come down, that’s useless. It’s my idea about my efforts to give God the pre-eminence and glory which only belongs to Him.

The third thing i do concerning setting the precedent of the day, i also take communion, declaring devotion to the Lord first thing. It’s a simple thing and we don’t have to tightly close our eyes as if we’re in pain, and move our mouths in some silent, pensive focus. It’s not hard and neither should we make it hard. Some would ask, “why do you do that?” To eat the bread is to participate in the body that was given on the cross and is now enthroned in glory. To drink the cup is to participate in the blood that ratified the new covenant and now cleanses, gives buoyancy and resilience to, and seals us as God’s own. We are His. This is not magic, nor is it a trivial memorial of something from long ago. It is a Holy Spirit-fashioned communion with the entirety of Christ as a whole — crucified, risen, ascended, and present. Friends, that’s a big deal. Honestly, all of this is easy to do so i see no reason to not, other than a heart full of “don’t want to” sometimes.

So where is prayer in this? Consistent and repeatably, everyday, i talk to the Lord and walk. Yes walk. It is a personal and relational conversation just like two friends walking and talking together. Yes, as in Luke 24:13-35, walking and talking together. Psalm 133:1 “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” And that “together” part includes our daily walk-around-conversation with God.

So. there we’ve got three things, yes four — giving God the pre-eminence of recognition, presenting myself before the Lord thereby setting the precedent of the day, then declaring devotion with communion, and lastly, prayer. Spend time cultivating your every-day-walk-around conversation, tell Him all of what’s on your heart and keep pursuing the Lord, and read your Bible. We often say we’re devoted to Jesus, but does our life reflect that? We must choose.

So, there’s my habit as a devotion and here’s the challenge.

i love the roll of conversation that happens when i meet people. But they always seem to want to meet early, early in the morning. i’m not objecting here, but i started noticing that if i meet someone for conversation and coffee on Monday, and a different person on Tuesday, then another on Wednesday, and a Bible study on Thursday, skipping my personal devotion, after a while, week in and week out, i started noticing an odd feeling of being spiritually out of breath, literally becoming breathless to spend time with God, who is my source of all goodness, wisdom, righteousness, strength and hope. Breathless after God. As an example, if we don’t read our Bible it makes hearing God a real challenge. Similarly, if we don’t spend time with God, one on one, walking and talking together but, instead, settling for a quick, run down my prayer list and calling it koinonia, which is participation, communion, and fellowship with God, my life with the Lord starts to lose it’s luster and high shine which i cherish above all things.

i easily keep the first part of pre-eminence of recognition, presenting and communion, but the prayer time is lost in my not keeping my full devotion. Over time, being in a hurry and for lack of prayer, i started noticing my spiritual vision was muddled sometimes, i began to feel out of sorts more and more often, little by little i began to feel like a boat, once tightly tethered to the dock but had somehow gotten loose from what kept it steady to now floating away. Little by little. Over time, there it was, my panting after the Lord in breathless pursuit was fading. It was horrible!

Psalm 143:6, “I spread out my hands to you; I thirst for you like a parched land.” That word, “thirst” represents a desperate reaching toward God, literally to “breathe after God”. When David was in the wilderness he wrote in Psalm 63:1, “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.”

          In those two verses there is expressed a spiritual longing as a physical necessity — breathing after, panting after, thirsting after — emphatically pointing out the fact that true satisfaction comes only from God. There is no lasting, true satisfaction outside of Christ. You may not believe it all together, or maybe you’re still struggling to even believe Jesus is alive, real, listening, and present, but my hard won wisdom is that my first priority is Jesus, and my last priority is Jesus. To say i am “breathless after God” is my way of expressing an intense longing, panting or yearning for God’s presence, similar to when we breathe heavily like someone desperate for air or water.

i needed to rework my priorities. Visiting with members of the body is indeed important, but the bottom line answer, i say, more important than anything is Jesus, every time, consistent and repeatable. To say we “breathe after the Lord” is like saying, “breathless after God”, though not a direct scripture quote, it has the same theme as in Psalm 42:1-2. It’s important to know that deer have a survival tactic of when being pursued by predators, they often run to water where it’s scent and tracks are lost in the water and it finds safety, so the writer is saying, “i’m breathless after you oh God, i breathe after you, for you alone are my sustenance, my hope, and salvation, and there is not another. “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”

What are your priorities? Is Jesus the first and last of your day, everyday, or is He a “when i get around to it — i’ve got important stuff to do”. What is more important than Jesus? Be honest. i’m not saying disregard life, c’mon, we all have important things to do, but more so, i’m posing we look at our heart posture and are we actually pursuing the Lord as we say we do?

i’m Social Porter for living in His Name Ministries

Romans 1:18-21, “For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.”

God is not hidden and we are still hiding. From the days of Genesis when Adam and Eve hid themselves in the garden, even though man was hiding from God, God was not hiding from man. His works are visible for anyone who is interested in seeing them. i suppose the key operative phrase there is “anyone who is interested”.

Let’s talk about the idea of “wrath” a little. In our weekly Bible study in Romans, i’ve been re-re-re-re-reading it all. When i got to Rom1:18, i stopped, and struggled at the word “wrath”. For the first time, as i read the word several times out loud, i actually paid attention to my mental picture. Ugh! Not pretty! Where did i get this idea that i’m seeing? Yup, more than likely right out of the southern church pulpit of fire and brimstone. My focus isn’t on what “they”, the infamous “they” got wrong, but how i have a twisted view of the Lord. i can’t be responsible for them, nor will i waste my time being offended by anyone’s doctrine, but i can do something about myself.

It is the truth: There is no excuse for not believing in God, although many of us have got tons of excuses, and some are even quite convincing. Many are literally working to deconstruct their faith, which in the classical sense is more about our epistemology, what we believe, how we came to that idea, and why we think it’s a good idea. BUT! The modern day meaning of deconstructing faith is merely a cover to deconversion ourselves and embrace the ever popular agnosticism and even atheism, thereby making ourselves our own God, we are our own standard, our own beginning and end. We are choosing. Sad.

The truth: the Lord has clearly revealed Himself to the world and to each individual’s conscience. i believe we have to be interested enough to look and see. Simply looking up at the stars at night should convince anyone there is a Creator, or looking at flowers, or the intricacies of leaves and seasons. It is obvious the unintelligent universe could not possibly have devised such complexity. In addition, i am convinced all people know deep inside themselves that there is a God, and there is a universal standard of right and wrong. However, they suppress the truth because, again, i am convinced, they don’t want to believe.

“Don’t want to” is at the core of the matter, just a heart full of “don’t want to”. Believing would put unbelievers face-to-face with themselves … they would have to reconcile their nature to give power to their flesh over their spirit, and would have to deal with their systemic rebellion. Our need to come back to God seems more than most are willing to bear. Maybe the need for Christ isn’t acute enough yet … it will be.

Therefore, they deny the facts of God’s existence and play little mental games, trying to rationalize away the truth. Because of this, God’s “wrath” is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness.

“Wrath”, now there’s a word we never hear anyone casually use in conversation. In this case, it isn’t just raging anger as we’ve been taught … that is a teaching which has cast unkind shadows on the heart of love. The Greek word implies a “lavish swelling of sap and vigor,” a “thrusting and upsurging”. It implies a “decisive action” with a “specific focus”, not “blind anger” just snapping at anything that moves, but is specialized as a powerful passion of God’s heart, as in a driving passion to avenge injustice. Oh, how we often misconstrue God’s heart and intentions, and i think we really need to do something about that. i think most of what we’ve been taught is that God’s “wrath” is more a predominantly negative judgment, like saying, “If you don’t do right, God is gonna’ git you!” The Lord never, ever operates in “blind irritation”, nor is ever filled with “irrational emotion” with the intent to hurt anyone who is in His way. That’s not it. It is a word used of righteous soldiers and men of high valor defending against evil. The raging angry gods of the Greeks, THEY were the ones who were unswerving, pitiless and terrible, and that my friends, has been overlaid on the character of our God and King. The deities of the Greeks were the ones brimming over the top with divine “payback”, always calling for retribution, eyes on fire with resentment, always making sure that “punishment closely followed fault”, over and over till we’re pounded to dust, with no mention of grace. Isn’t that how many see God these days? That was the Greek gods, but that is not who we serve … never did, never will. This transference of character from the Greek false gods, lo eloah, not gods, lo el, not divine, upon the one and only God is yet, another twist created to make us view the Lord as spiteful and bitter. It is a lie.

God is the God of truth. The God of the Bible is not a god of myth or legend. Jesus Christ is truth, after all, He said in John14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” He is the ultimate reality, the very personification of the way the truth and the life; He is what is truly real in the universe; He is what is real in a world full of deception and lies. Likewise, the Bible is not just some made-up book of religious fantasy; rather it is true spiritually, historically, and scientifically.

God is not hidden. We are. We were hiding in the garden of Eden, and we are still hiding today. The Lord is bidding us to come out of hiding, to humble ourselves and be honest, to throw open the doors of our heart and tear down our fences. Christ is visible and willing to forgive us all our darkest secrets. We’ve simply go to be willing to come out of our hiding places.

i’m Social Porter for Living In His Name Ministries.