Am I Pharisee?

Do you ever feel like a Pharisee? Come on, never? I think I feel like a Pharisee 90% of the time. I feel like some religious leader who has it all figured out. In my mind I pass judgement on those that are not as "spiritual" or "religious" as I am. I see them and think, if they will just do this or that then they could be like me and have a great spiritual life like me. I see their sins and their weaknesses sticking out and wonder how come they don't "do" something about it. I am a Pharisee. How did my heart come to the place where it would do this? What has made me get to the point where I am the "religious" leader who passes judgement.

I've read Luke 18:9-14. I have read how the Pharisee goes into the temple and prays self-righteously, thanking God that he is not like the sinners (swindlers, unjust, adulterers or even like the tax collector who was also there). He informs God that he has given his tithe and that he fasts twice a week.

I've also read where the tax collector humbly stands off in the distance. Too humbled and broken to even lift his eyes to heaven, he prays, "God be merciful to me the sinner!"

When I read this passage my heart breaks. I see that my heart is too often like that Pharisee, proud and boastful. I go to God with all that I "do" and thank Him that I am not like the others, those that are not followers. Those that are deep in their sin.

Wait. I too am deep in my sin. Up to my neck.

I want to be like the tax collector. Humble and unworthy of even looking to the heavens. I want to bow down my life to the One who is worthy. I want to see who I really am. I want to see that I am truly sinful to the core and its only by the grace of God and the blood of Jesus that I even have a right to approach the throne of Grace.

Why can't I see my brokeness before God. Why must I wear the religious garb and become someone I am not.

Lord, make me holy. Make me like Your Son.

Ruthless Trust

Trust. I say I trust God. You say you trust God. Yet we live each precious moment with worry and concern for the outcome of many if not all of the day's events. But is this how Christ wants us to live? I hope not. I hope that Christ doesn't want me to live each day with a shaky, shady trust that is never sure. Is that even trust at all? Is it a form of trust? Or is it just a poor attempt at trust?

I don't believe this is how Christ wants us to live. I believe He wants us to live each day in a faith that is real to us. A trust that doesn't second guess, a trust that is "ruthless" as Brennan Manning puts it. Our trust needs to be an all out attack on the love of God. Depending, loving and believing Him for His goodness and His care of His sheep.

This trust makes us pray like this (as found in Manning's Ruthless Trust) "Abba, into your hands I entrust my body, mind, and spirt and this entire day - morning, afternoon, evening, and night. Whatever you want of me, I want of me, falling into you and trusting in you in the midst of my life. Into your heart I entrust my heart, feeble, distracted, insecure, uncertain. Abba, unto you I abandon myself in Jesus our Lord. Amen."

I believe Manning is absolutely right, that our trust should be more than a generic trust in God. It should be the deep depending trust of the prayer that Manning gives us in his book. Oh, how we should long and seek to have a trust in God with all that we are. A ruthless, unwavering, trust that holds back nothing, but runs fully into Christ's open arms.

Too often, our "faith" becomes generic and conditioned. Its lived out over and over, day after day. We do the best we can to live as a Christian, but that is about it. Being a Christian becomes something that we "do."

May God give us all trust - trust to run into His arms and make this "faith" something real and living and precious. Make it a relationship that is living and breathing and passionate. Make it more than what it has been. Make it all that it can be.

Do you trust Christ like this? I don't everday. I strive to. That is my goal. Maybe you don't have a relationship with Christ at all. He calls us to trust in Him. Maybe now you will see what this trust really is.

God's Grace

God's grace is so amazing. I know that this saying "amazing grace" is probably overdone but as I sit here listening to Todd Agnew's "Grace Like Rain" I can't help but feel unworthy of His grace and incompetent to describe this grace that God gives so freely to me. I prayed this morning that God would give me grace in a certain situation and God did just that. He poured his wonderful grace upon me today, all to His great glory. Grace - so undeserved. I feel sometimes, well most of the time that I need grace to even accept God's grace. Why does the Sovereign choose to be kind to me, a ragamuffin, a sinner who's heart is full of sin and shame?

Have you ever had one of those days where you just know that you had this "supernatural" help and that you were spared from something worse or something terrible? That is what this day was like. I worried and fretted over something so small. Yet I left it in God's hands and prayed for His grace. And it was His grace that got me through. By His grace and for His glory. That is the name of a book but is the theme of my life. I live by His grace and for His glory.

By His grace and for His glory.

Ain't I handsome? 

Well, here I am

Well here I am. The beginning of my blog. I have always said that I wanted to do this. Actually, this is my second attempt at doing this. We will see if this one sticks this time. This blog will be my ramblings on Christ, the church, the culture, and other great "c" words.

Right now I am thinking about a passage of scipture that I just read, a few minutes ago. Christ calls us to abide in Him. WOW! That is good stuff. We are to live in, abide in, the creator of the universe. My feeble and finite mind can not wrap its mind around this great and glorious thought. Christ calls us out of our sin and into living in Him. We just need to do it. I just need to do it. Today. Christ help me.