Friend, “you are not nowhere, nor are you living in nowhere land with nowhere plans.”

i knew a man who shared with me some of his early life story. As he talked and i listened, i began to realize what a phenomenal story i was hearing, and how miraculous it was that he’d managed, with God’s help, to overcome such staggering odds to be where he was. He wasn’t rich, but he was prosperous. He wasn’t a hero, but he was strong and courageous everyday. He didn’t have a title, but he was a leader. He could probably buy most anything he might want, but the beauty was he didn’t really want anything. He’d had a lot of things and gotten rid of a lot of things and just didn’t want things anymore. What he wanted was Jesus and it showed in all he did and in every word he spoke.

His son had recently found one of his dad’s old 10^th grade report cards, and sent him a photo of it on his phone. When the fellow saw the picture, it was a shameful thing with nothing but d minuses, f’s, zeros’, and some teachers notes indicating the young man of many years ago, was smart, but just seemed indifferent to doing any better. In the moment he texted back to his son saying at that time of his life, his own father had told him he was born a zero, and he’d probably die a zero, and the boy heard it enough that he finally decided if his father believed that about him, he might as well just go on and be a zero. So… he did. As a young man he joined the Navy to escape a bleak life, only to enter into an even more bleak life. He was in good shape, and had learned to fight pretty well, he said he actually enjoyed being a back alley pugalist. He put in to join the Navy Seals. Surprisingly, he got the assignment to go to training, but the end of his tour had come up and the Government wanted 6 more years out of him. Also, at the end of his tour in the Navy, he met Jesus and his life changed by degrees every day.  The Lord told him not to sign up but to get out, which he did. Later in life he learned the wisdom of God’s counsel when he realized there were four things he didn’t have which would have caused him to fail as a Navy SEAL. He was too big, his knees would never have taken the challenge, he didn’t know how to be a team player, and more than anything, he didn’t possess the heart of a champion.

Then he said something amazing which woke up a realization about myself. He said, for so much of his early life, in the back of his head, there was always a song playing, an old Beatles tune with the words turned personal, “i’m a real nowhere man, living in my nowhere land, making all my nowhere plans for no one.” Over and over until he believed it and adjusted his life to live like it. Thankfully, his story didn’t end there, leaving the listener in such a place of despair.

As i said, at the end of his tour of duty, he met Jesus and life began to change. The Lord told him different things, better things, truer things, life giving things. God said he was proud of him, and told him over and over and over he was smart, and he was strong. Seemingly every day, God reversed the words of the “nowhere man” song, saying, “You’re a real somewhere man, living in My somewhere land, making all your somewhere plans for everyone.” Over and over until he began to believe it and live like it. The turn around wasn’t over night, and in fact, it was a long… slow… turn because the Lord solved many things on the way back home. Just like many things were solved on the way home for the prodigal son, God solves many things in us on our road back to the Father.

So what am i getting at? i’m here to tell you, remind you as often as necessary, you, yes you… were not, are not, and never will be a nowhere man, living in your nowhere land. God has always had a plan for you. The enemy of our souls may whisper lies to us, but God, yes, But God says you are NOT a nothing, NOT born a nothing and WON’T die a nothing. You have so much value in you God was willing to die for you and give you life beyond your wildest dreams. But i must add though, here’s the catch, you’ve got to live it, not just call it out by faith, but put it into action and live it. Do it! Let your mother’s negative words which are stuck in your head go, tell the influencers in your ears that they are FIRED and are not allowed to have any impact on your life.

Friend, quit giving your ears to all the badness that’s been spoken to you. Buy into, set your sights on, purchase with all you have, all the things God says. You are NOT a nowhere man, and from before you were born, you were NOT destined to live in nowhere land. If you are in Christ, you are always, always, always somewhere and are a someone. To call yourself a nothing and a zero is to call God nothing, and that’s another lie we’ve swallowed. Your calling is to Christ. You can do right business. You are empowered to get those invoices out, on time, to the right person. You are smart enough to know how money flows through your business. You are big enough to learn to close your mouth and open your mouth when necessary, acting like a mature adult with good filters and solid boundaries. Yes that’s you. You are because God says you are. i don’t know who you are, but i’m here to tell you, as a person who has heard the “nowhere man” song in my own head, all my life, it’s a lie. Repeat this with me, “i am not nowhere and i won’t buy into the nowhere man song in my head any longer.” Say it again, “i am not nowhere and i won’t buy into the nowhere man song in my head any longer.”

What do you think?

What is it with us and our inclination to be contrary? Even when it’s to our exclusive advantage to agree with God, we’ve got in our heart a big fat “yea but” which prevents us.

The Lord brought something to mind while i was praying this morning. It was just a snippet of a memory. Many years ago, another fellow and i were cutting tobacco, and as we were cutting and stacking the crop which needed to go hang in the barn to cure, we were talking about getting some help, wherewith i mentioned hiring one particular guy but didn’t know if it was a good idea. As i remember the conversation, the other fellow said to me, “He’s a pretty good fellow alright, but he’s just… contrary… and i’d just as well leave him at home as to have him around.” In the moment it was a pretty good chuckle, but this morning, God brought it all back to mind. Yea but…

We hold church at the jail every Thursday night, and the other night in particular i heard some very familiar words, “Yea but” this, and “yea but” that. We would say, “Jesus is the answer” and one fellow would say, “Yea, but if He would only…” Almost no matter what was said, that guy would tag in a “yea but”. He was just … contrary. By nature, not that he didn’t agree necessarily, but it was his nature to be contrary. Yea but this, and yea but that. Contrary.

How often, in your life, do you read something from scripture, and even though you may generally agree, somewhere in your heart is a “yea but”, which adds a condition to the Lord’s words? He said He will never leave us and is always with us, yet we add “yea but, i feel so alone.” You know, as Kevin says, “If we’d simply be honest about ourselves and situation, many things would resolve themselves, simply by being honest.”

One time a very angry lady said she truly believed Jesus was Lord and God, and when i agreed with her she then added, while slamming the Bible with her hand, “Yea but, there’s so many contradictions in the Bible i can’t bring myself to believe it.” Upon further discussion, the r-e-a-l issue was that the Lord has righteous boundaries, and says, very plainly, some things are simply wrong. Well, those very things were things she, personally, didn’t see anything wrong with doing, and rather than agree with God, she re-decided that HE was being contradictory. In the moment, i told her i was not a hammer and she didn’t look like a nail, but if she was going to follow the Lord, then follow Him, and if she wasn’t then don’t. But she really should consider to get herself out of the torturous position of indecision. If she would simply be honest about herself it would go a long way to not being angry and conflicted.

1 Kings 18:21, “And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping around between two different paths, sitting on a fence? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word and nobody made a move.”

The word for “limping” is used in the sense of someone who is on crutches who hobbles around or dances around something, and the phrase “two different paths”, as in two points of view, is used in the sense of either going left or right. The entire verse is about being conflicted, being di-vided, or having di-vision. Hobbling around an indecision without making a decision is a big “yea but”, which means we are dancing around deciding whether to go left or right, and Elijah was addressing the painfulness of being at the crossroads of indecision. Is He God or not? Yes. Then act like it. And if you don’t want to believe He is, be honest about it and don’t. We can’t go left AND right at the same time, it still leaves us wrecked in the middle, still hovering around not being able to come to a conclusion. i think for a large part of my life i’ve been the Chief of the Yea But tribe, whose favorite phrase is “yea but” “yea but” “yea but”, living on the ever desolate high plains of the mountains of indecision, slamming back and forth like clothes in the washing machine, being beaten back and forth, coming to no particular conclusion.

A constant stream of “yea but’s” from us is an indicator of confusion, and in 1 Corinthians 14:33 Paul writes that the Lord is not the God of confusion. The Greek word for confusion refers to being caught up by a “contrary wind which blows this way and then that”, can’t make up it’s mind, popping the sails of the boat back and forth. It is a word indicating unrest, turmoil, and disorder.

The guys at the Mebane Freedom League gave me a good example once. They said living in the momentum of our “yea but” is like trying to force a square peg through a round hole, and the problem with forcing a square peg through a round hole is that there are “leftovers”.  If you do actually mange to force a square peg through a round hole, it shaves off certain portions of the peg just to make it “fit”, and sure, after you’re done with all your forcing, it can be said that it “fits” in the end, but what about the bits that got “shaved off”?  Afterall, this IS the truth we’re talking about and even the “shavings” matter!  Except “yea but” people end up with a HUGE pile of shavings and when asked, what about the HUGE pile of shavings, they attempt to “explain it away” or divert us.  “Yea but” is like forcing that square peg through a round hole, and it rips chunks out of the truth to make it work.

Is the Lord God or not? If He is, then act like it, and if you don’t want to believe it, then don’t…. stop dancing around two ways to go, and get on with it.

What do you think?

          Never. Just as there are several important things for us to know of the Lord which are always, there are several important things which are “never”, meaning at no time in the past or future; on no occasion; not ever. “Never”, as God uses the word is an absolute negative.

One of the first things that is never is that God is never man, and inversely, man is never God. Numbers 23:19, “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” We may work to reduce the Lord to being on equal footing with us imagining the Lord to struggle with things like we do, but that is only what we may wish except in no wise is it true, ever. He is always God and there is never a time He is not, i am never God and there’s never a time i am.

The Lord God does not sin, and if there is no sin, there is no transgression, nor is there iniquity. 1 John 3:5, “You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.” Jesus did not miss the mark, fall short in any fashion, nor was there or will be a place for death and dying to find a foothold in Him.

God is never late, and as long as we live it is never too late. In Luke 11 there is a story of Jesus showing up right on time. i heard a preacher call God “God of the last minute”, implying the Lord waits until the very last moment to move, and that’s not true. He is always on time, the perfect time, and nothing less. A mothers son had died and was being carried out to be buried. The young son had obviously been dead for a least long enough to be prepared for the burial, so it wasn’t like in the last minute or two he stopped breathing. No, the boy was dead, real dead. What did Jesus do? He encouraged the mother to not worry, and told the boy to get up from his death bed. Jesus was not late, but right on time. God is not the God of the last minute, he’s always on time, perfectly, and never late.

Love never fails, and God never fails! 1 John 4:8, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love”, and 1 Corinthians13 tells us that Love never fails. In addition, God is never envious or a braggart, never arrogant or rude, He is never irritable, resentful, and never, ever, ever is glad anyone does the wrong thing.

The Lord will never betray us. Psalm 89:33, the Lord says, “… but I will not remove from him my steadfast love or be false to my faithfulness.” This is important because we often want the Lord to be guilty of the things we are guilty of, but He is not. God will not ever descend to join us in our iniquity so we don’t have to be guilty, but we should ascend to join Him in His righteousness instead. Even though Jesus became flesh and took our sin to Himself, He had no sin, never did He sin or transgress, nor does any of our sin stick to Him that He would be defiled.

God is never tired, He never grows weary and never needs a nap. Isaiah 40:28, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.” Oh, and that last part, his understanding is unsearchable, that means the wisdom of God is never ending, He understands all things so perfectly, there is no end to His insight. The Lord never gets tricked, never is manipulated, and never is out maneuvered. Never.

The Lord will never leave you. We who are believers tell each other He will never leave us, forsaken like orphans, but once again, the details of our lives tell another story. How often do we talk ourselves out of God’s promises? God never lies, so it is true, He will never leave you, so let’s cut out this “woe is me” attitude saying one thing but then, when we do something wrong or act out inappropriately, stop acting like, “The Lord has left the room. You know, God can’t be where sin is, so he’s not with me.” Gosh, what another lie, an absolute colossal lie at that. If God can’t be where sin is, then how could He be where you were when you got saved? Forgive me for using such a forceful word, but it’s the truth, that’s just stupid and self-validates our attitude of, “If i were God i wouldn’t like me either.” Well … lucky for you, you aren’t God, because that’s not how He is.

God never wastes, not one little piece, of all that we go through. There are no extra words in the Bible nor and there any spare people in Heaven. Remember Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”? That’s no fooling around, the Lord never speaks glibly, saying stuff He doesn’t really mean.

Lastly, God will never die, or fade away. He is everlasting, unending. Psalm 90:2 says the Lord is “from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” He came from eternity and He stretches into eternity. God never made application to some ethics board or to some corporate or government agency for Him to be God and operate as He does. He never asks their permission to be the Lord, they should ask His permission to be an agency or a government.

Set these things in stone in your heart and mind, bank on them, and re-think how you see the Lord. We truly must address our twisted ideas of the Lord.

What do you think? There are actually more than 18, how many can you find?

          The Lord wants us to reconsider our downward spiraling attitude about ourselves. i don’t mean lifted up in pride being arrogant and boastful about how great we are, but lifted up by the goodness of God which is humbling, and uplifting all at the same time.

When i went to high school, within the culture of high school in general, there were all these little sub-cultures. There were the athletes, the athlete-wannabe’s, the popular girls and popular girl-wannabe’s, the middle people who weren’t popular or unpopular – just kind of non-distinct. And then there was the lower echelons, some were farm kids who were typically pretty good kids but tough as nails, and then, yes, and then there were those who found identity in the hippy-type posers. We wore bell bottom jeans, refused to wash sometimes, and pretended to rebel against authority. That is… until authority came knocking on our door, then we quickly hid behind our parents who we previously told people we hated. We didn’t make good grades, we didn’t do our homework, we acted like we resented class, reading, learning, or anything which we felt was an imposition. i was one of those. i made d’s and few f’s, and i wore them, outwardly as a badge of rebellion, but inwardly i was continually crushed by the dishonor of my poor grades. It’s an absolute miracle i graduated. Maybe the teachers just wanted me to go away, i don’t know. i felt stupid, and little by little i became as i felt. i saw myself as a “d” person, going “d” places with other “d” people, having “d” conversations, doing “d” things for “d” reasons. i operated on a “d” and “f” platform, and was clueless about so much. Hey, i just wanted to fit in someplace, and it was easiest to fit in at the bottom of our little sub-culture.

Later in life, as i reached the bottom of everything, in general, as an alcoholic and a drug addict, i met Jesus. Well, let me tell you, yes it was life changing, but He didn’t change my victim mentality and all of my grief’s right away. Little by little, i learned to become responsible for my actions. Inch by inch life did began to change, until one day i had the brilliant idea to discover how God saw me, and i want to tell you what He told me. i found out that God, actually, has a lot to say about what he thinks about us.

One of the first things is “you are prized and treasured”, valuable. He gave us His breath so we could breath and created us in His image and reflection. He knows the number of the hairs on your head, and says you are more valuable than the sparrows, valuable enough He gave His life, and that’s saying something. He has, oh this is good, has crowned you, yes you, with glory and honor and calls you the pinnacle of creation. Yes, yes, yes, i know you know you fall short, children of wrath and corruption, but in stunning gestures of love He gave it to us to believe in Christ if we want out of dying and death with all the falling down in between. Our state of fallen grace doesn’t have the last word. Grace does.

He says you are no longer orphans, alone in the dark, held in a prison cell made only for violent offenders, but He calls you His own.

Ok, now the next one is really important, so let’s get it worked down in our head. If you have asked the Lord to take over your life, then you really need to know…He says you… are… new. The old has passed away and the new has come. You are no longer a slave to wrongness of character and as weightless as a shadow. Again, if you have believed in Christ as Lord, then God says you are now righteous in His sight…no sir, no condemnation for you.

And as if that wasn’t enough, He gave you His Holy Spirit so you don’t have to live under your own power and dismal understanding, and He is with you, God is on your side! The Lord promises He will guide you into all truth, and all means all. He also promises to help you do what He says, and even, yes even empower you to do His work. He didn’t say you’d just be changed, He said you’d be transformed! You may say, “well, i’m just not seeing it.” Ok, then let’s ask Him to open your eyes to see Him and to see you through His eyes. Ask Him, what have you got to lose?

Not only is God so, so very confident in His ability to get you where you need to go, He has even given it to you to go forward in a manner that is worthy of your calling, representing Him in all He is. Oh yea, You, are a citizen of Heaven and an ambassador of Christ.

Now, you may not believe all that. You may say, “I am so unworthy, I don’t deserve such goodness.” You’re right! But aren’t we lucky that the Lord didn’t ask us if we thought we were worthy, He just said we are and didn’t ask us if it was ok.

Let this sink down into your head. How God sees you supersedes how you see you. You are not a slave, not, not, not, and if you think you are and “that’s just the way it is because i’m so bad and far away”, the Lord is reaching out to you saying “My friend, it doesn’t have to be that way. i have made a way for you to be free.”

What do you think? Consider, life may not have worked out well, so far, believing “i’m just a “d” and “f” kinda person, so i’m sorta’ resigned to living a “d” and “f” life”…. why not take a chance with God and do something different?

18 Things Which Are Always

          In this life, there are very few things which are always. Unless we’re speaking about strict identities, like man, woman, up, down, etc, most everything else can change it seems.

i realize we’ve spoken of the words “always” and “never” before, but it seems the Lord wants us to know more about the “always” things which are alive in scripture.

In Romans 1:9, Paul writes, “For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers.” And Luke18:1, Jesus said that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.

Always, meaning every which way, waking and sleeping, in a way which says, “you are always on my mind”. i used to wonder how anyone could pray without ceasing. Can you hear it? i can. In the back of my head, by the power of the Holy Spirit, it is entirely possible there is a song and prayer continuously going on. Listen, it is there. Does a lack of prayer in the heart and soul of a believer imply somehow there is also a loss of heart?

Jesus said in Matthew 26:11 the poor are always with us. Now that word “poor” means more than simply without monetary means, God means something larger, as in poor in spirit, poor in common sense, beggarly allegiances, poverty stricken in self-control, peace, and rightness of character to name a few. Let us also note that the reason the poor are always with us is that oppressors, the unjust, and manipulative to gain a personal agenda are also always with us.

John 8:29, “…for I always do those things that please him.” Jesus is speaking of the will of the Father. The preferences and standards of the Father are the preferences and standards of Jesus. Let us also adopt an attitude of heart which is determined to own Gods standards and preferences for ourselves, always doing the things which please the Lord.

In John 11:41-42, Jesus made a statement which we need, NEED to believe and know as He knew. He said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me…” He made this statement so those around Him would believe also that God hears us when we pray, Always. He knows it, it isn’t a suspicion which would indicate unsureness lurking around in His head. He said, always, meaning without a doubt, at all times; on all occasions, without fail. We n-e-e-d to know this one in particular.

2 Corinthians 2:14, “But thanks be to God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ...” Those in Christ will not triumph mostly, not pretty much, but are ALWAYS caused to triumph, singing the honor of His great name. Believe it! Gods always means exactly what He said, always. When we are sure we are water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again, we need to know there is nothing SO dead, God cannot grow life out of it. He ALWAYS causes us to triumph.

2 Corinthians 5:5-6, “He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage.” God has prepared us, we are equipped, going forward with His guarantee, therefore we always are of good courage. Gods guarantee means “always”, without a doubt, by which the result is brought about that we are no longer slaves of fear. We bank on Gods guarantee that Jesus has overcome the world, going forward in the power of the Spirit. Be of good courage to stand up in His name.

David describes a heart posture that is necessary for us when he wrote in Psalm16:8 that he has “set the Lord always before him, therefore he will not be shaken.” To set the Lord always before us, means to purposely, put God first, always, surrendering to Him the pre-eminence in all things… before my ambition, before my self-advancement, before my objective for building a church… before everything, i have set the Lord before me. To “set God before us”, means we make Him the standard. As a result, when i am cornered and chaos surrounds my house, the shalom of God encapsulates me and i will not be moved. All my days are before the Lord.

Paul declares in 2 Corinthians 9:8 that God is able to make all grace abound towards us, that we would always have all sufficiency in all things in order to super-abound in excess in every good work. It is always good to be zealously affected for a good purpose, bound and driven to thank God always, without fail, continuously with joy.

By the power and guarantee of God we can set ourselves in a continual position for our speech to always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that we can know how we ought to answer each person. 1 Thessalonians 5:15, “always, always, always follow after that which is good, that is Gods version of what is good, looking to do good to one another and to everyone.”

Friends, let us always labor, in all things, for the glory of God, rejoicing always as it says in Philipians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.”

And the creme-dela-creme, the cream of the cream, Jesus said He will never leave us, and is always with us, and i’ll say it over and over until i get it down in my head, God means what He says, and always means always, and there’s never a time He meant something other than always. As a result, He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Christ, since he always lives to make intercession for us.

What do you think? There are actually more than 18, how many can you find?

          Living our lives in the fullness of the space we live in, to our highest potential should be one of our aspirations, not merely surviving, but actually prospering. Oh, and don’t you know, God’s idea of prosperity in contrast to our own idea can be a very wide difference.

It seems all of us, at one time or another, are hesitant to come to grips with the fact that all things which breath, at some point, stop breathing. Yes, i’m talking about dying. Dying is something we don’t get to practice in order that, when the time comes, we can do it well. There are no courses to take with revealing questions to answer at the end of each chapter which will help us die well. There are no books written by a well known author with a title like, “8 Easy Steps To Dying Well”. Or at least, at this writing, i don’t know of any.

i think many of us aren’t hardly prepared to live, much less die, that is not until we are fading away into eternity and then urgency is upon us and we seriously consider all the things we wish we had said or done. When people attend a funeral, they get all melancholy, waxing philosophic, and voicing reasons as to why this event happened to someone like him or her. Breathe man breathe, death comes to us all, and indeed, is a depressing subject in itself, and it’s true, who wants to be depressed?

Actually, i think our entire nation is somewhat depressed, carrying around a backpack with pockets of hidden pensive sadness concerning the way our lives have gone, morbidly shuffling around a head full of “should have’s” and “might have’s”. You know, it really doesn’t have to be that way. God has a better idea.

Are you taking advantage of every opportunity God extends you, in order that you’d live life to the fullest in the space the Lord gave you? In Christ, how much space is yours? What defines your space? Sure, Jesus is your space, but what are the contents of that space? i think, many times we get so caught up in the details of our work-a-day world, we simply don’t recognize the moments right in front of us. Everyone has seasons of deadlines, problems, distractions and obstacles, and we all want more from life than what we stand in most of the time, yet, often, it just doesn’t seem to be near to our hand to grasp. i don’t think anyone wants to be merely average, i doubt young adults hope they lead a life of more or less. i don’t think anyone dreams of leading a ho-hum existence, making a paycheck, eating enough to live, basically saying they’ll probably live till they die, and that’s all. We all want more than that even if it’s unlikely and is truly beyond our circumstances. The media and advertisers know this and bait us into the hypnotic dazzle of bright lights, and high living, saying, “You can have it all”, and “life is a journey – enjoy the ride”, calling to us with a Siren’s call to buy their product, guaranteeing us life will be fuller if we do this, “one simple thing.” In one way, truly, it’s just that simple, “just do it”, but in another way it’s far larger than we imagine.

i heard a great story by a fellow who said: A young soldier and his commanding officer got on a train together. The only available seats were across from an attractive young woman who was traveling with her grandmother. As they engaged in pleasant conversation, the soldier and the young woman kept eyeing one another; the attraction was obviously mutual. Suddenly the train went into a tunnel and the car became pitch black.

Immediately two sounds were heard: the “smack” of a kiss, and the “whack” of a slap across the face. The grandmother thought “I can’t believe he kissed my granddaughter, but I’m glad she gave him the slap he deserved.”

The commanding officer thought, “I don’t blame the boy for kissing the girl, but it’s a shame that she missed his face and hit me instead.”

The young girl thought, “I’m glad he kissed me, but I wish my grandmother hadn’t slapped him for doing it.”

And as the train broke into the sunlight, the soldier could not wipe the smile off his face. He had just seized the opportunity to kiss a pretty girl, slap his commanding officer and had gotten away with both!

i wouldn’t suggest anyone do what the young man did in that story, but the point is … he seized the moment, and i believe the Lord presents us with many Holy Spirit-charged moments if we’re interested and have eyes to see. O.S. Marden wrote: “There’s no greater sight in the world than that of a person fired with a great purpose, dominated by one unwavering aim.”

In Philippians 3:12-16, Paul is speaking of gaining Christ and the power of His resurrection, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.” Gaining ground and keeping the ground we’ve attained are two different things. He’s saying, “i have not arrived, but i can assure you i have left.”

All men will pass away, but the real question is “did you really live?” Are you living well where you are in the fullness of your space, or merely surviving? Are you seeing the God-inspired moments which are in front of you every day, or are you walking past them, completely preoccupied with the dazzle of this world? Let me also add, there is not space to even begin to address those who feel they don’t deserve to have a full life, which is ludicrousness thriving in the shadows of doubt and self-condemnation.

What do you think?