The Caliber Clock

For the last year or two, I have been waking up and noticing numbers on my illuminated nightstand clock that read like rifle and handgun calibers - 2:23, 2:43, 2:57, 3:00, 3:27, 3:38 and 3:57. At first, I thought I was noticing the caliber numbers simply because of my background. I wondered if the numbers were something I should write about, but I had no unction from the Lord to do so at the time, so I just chalked it up to a fun way to wake up.

This morning, I decided to check a dictionary meaning for the word “caliber.” The dictionary meaning reads “degree of mental capacity or moral quality” and “the internal diameter or bore of a gun barrel.” When I read the definition, a word finally came that prompted me to write something. 

Earlier this week, I wrote a blog article about an increased capacity to do spiritual warfare and used a gun metaphor. The metaphor was drawn from an experience I had as a cop. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to write about another firearm metaphor because we have some sensitive souls out there who view guns as evil and those who enjoy shooting sports as a bit off-kilter. But I knew I had a word, so here it comes.

God is increasing your spiritual capacity to receive words of revelation that will be specifically crafted for release in the new season we have just entered. The bore of your spiritual capacity is being expanded to carry a magnum-sized cartridge of spiritual insight that will be used to fire deep into the heart of the deception that is running rampant through the streets of our nation. The discharge of these words will bring life, not death. 

The increase of your influence is not something you can prepare for apart from keeping your heart and mind pure and focused on God, not on those things that are an enemy to righteousness. When the time comes for you to fire on the lies and deception, you will be amazed at the sound and impact the word will bring when the Lord discharges His truth through your life.

The Passion and Purpose of Our Lives

These two books have sat on the shelves of my library for over 30 years. One book is filled with John Wesley’s sermon notes published in 1847, and the other contains Charles Spurgeon’s sermons published in 1855. I pulled them off our bookshelf and held them in my hands contemplating the value of the legacy each of us will leave behind. Like you, I want to leave behind the evidence of the same passion and purpose for God's Kingdom that motivated these two great men and others like them. 

Each of us will leave behind a record of our life. Our choices are what will determine the quality of our life message. In certain seasons of life, each of us will be surrounded by very challenging circumstances. The challenges do not determine our legacy. Our response to the challenges is what will create the script of our lives. 

Someday long after each of us are gone someone will hold a book or share a story that will describe our time on Earth. When we live for the glory of God, we will leave behind the evidence of a life that was empowered by a passion to pursue a higher good and a greater purpose. That is the kind of life that will be remembered and emulated in the distant future whenever someone hears a story or holds in their hands a record of a life well-lived.

When The Critics Criticize

My daughter, Anna, is an accomplished artist. Her art hangs in collections around the world. In the hallway of our home is one of Anna’s paintings. It's a Chagall-like image of a cat. The painting is professionally framed. As I walked by the painting today, I noticed an itty-bitty little insect the size of a pin’s head had somehow crawled into the frame and died on the brilliant white matting underneath the glass over. I only saw the little dead insect because I was looking intently at the painting. A casual passerby would not see it.

I have carried the image of the dead insect all day knowing there was a word coming. Later in the day, the Lord provided the word to go with the image.

Some of you have certain people in your life who do not fully appreciate the beauty of how God has created you. They do not stop to see the beauty of you like I did when pausing to view once again a familiar painting in our home to appreciate its artistic rendition. These individuals stop to look close for the failings and defects left behind in the frame of your life. In doing so, they fail to see the real you.

We all have a dead bug somewhere in the frame of our history. These little flaws surround our lives like a frame surrounds a work of art. They are not part of the original image. They are simply part of our broken history. They are reminders of our past, not our future. When Paul wrote to the Ephesians he referred to our lives as God’s masterpiece. We are gallery worthy God-art. Keep this in mind the next time a critic enters the gallery of your life and points out your dead bug.

By the way, I like that little, dead bug. I don’t plan on removing him from the frame because he reminds me that true beauty can never be compromised by the presence of a small bug or a small-minded critic.

Retrieving the Lost Treasure of Your Life

An archaeologist will tell you to never unearth a treasure from its original context without first seeking professional assistance. The context in which an article is found gives it history, meaning, and cultural value. An archaeologist has the skill and training required to do the extraction of a historical artifact in the right way. Treasure is not supposed to be removed by amateurs from its place in history to rest on the mantle above someone’s fireplace. These discoveries belong in museums after a careful and studious retrieval from their original place of discovery.

This is true for your life. The further you distance yourself from your history the less meaning the testimony of your life will have. Paul understood this concept. He used his painful history to reveal to the love, acceptance, and forgiveness of God. A testimony requires contrast. You are a combination of the history you were delivered from and the future you have been promised.  The promise of a new future requires the context of your past for it to be fully appreciated and pursued.

To be ashamed of your past or fearful of its recall is a reminder that you are still in the process of being healed. The result of that healing will be the ability to share your history without fear of rejection or a visit of the emotional devastation that still remains from an unresolved past. At that point of healing, your life will be removed from a disconnected mantle and placed in a spiritual gallery as a masterpiece of God where everyone passing by can view your complete life and see it as evidence of God's transforming love.

Living Without Regret

The most impactful and authentic things that take place in your life do not come from self-promotion or unbridled personal ambition. They are dropped into your life by the grace of God. These deposits are many times given in critical moments of spiritual growth as integrity checks to see how you handle their reality and steward their presence. Visibility in the marketplace of religion and a high profile ministry persona are never the evidence of character. They can simply be the result of effective marketing. Let God market your life. It will be far less complicated and will carry with it the sweet taste of a life lived without the bitterness of regret.

The Bookends of Life

Last weekend, I had a rare and wonderful privilege. I was invited to attend the retirement party for one of the finest rookie cops I had the privilege of training. Thirty-nine years ago I was a Field Training Officer (FTO) at the Springfield, Oregon Police Department. I was handed a young recruit by the name of Rich. It was my job to train him and show him how to stay alive on the streets. We spent months together. I took him from an eager young recruit to a trained officer able to ride solo and protect the citizens of our city. That is the assignment of an FTO.

During the retirement party, I was able to meet old friends from many years ago. Most are retired now. We told old war stories. At the end of the evening, a number of us took the microphone to share our memories. I shared some of my training stories about this rookie turned veteran Sergeant and respected by his peers. Then Rich took the microphone and told some stories about me. We laughed a lot. It was a great night. On the drive home I had a feeling of deep satisfaction seeing how life played out for this wonderful man.

When we returned home, I sent a text to my retired recruit and thanked him for the invitation and honor of being present at his retirement dinner. He sent a reply, “It was a perfect ending for my career.” His words struck a cord in my heart.

Every season of life has a beginning and an ending - bookends.  In the middle is where we make choices that create the quality of the ending. Rich’s start was a wonderful day, but his ending was far better. I remember one of the words of advice I gave him. I said, “Find a good woman. Buy a house. Have some kids. Be a good dad and faithful husband. Keep your nose clean and someday you will retire with honor.” He did all those things and the overflow crowds at Rich’s retirement affirmed his choices in life.

If this has been a tough season for you, start over – today. Declare an end and make this is a new day and a new beginning. Begin now to make the choices that will rewrite your future. God is in the business of resurrecting what is dead and giving new life to tired experiences. None of what you are going through is outside the reach of God's resurrection power. Nothing is ever too late or past due with God. He can take a day and make it into a thousand years or take a thousand years and reduce it to a single day. He is God. He can make all things new if you give Him a chance. That chance is empowered by your willingness to believe, obey and choose well. Start living today with a joyful retirement party in mind. It will change how you live and it will create the spiritual war stories that will be told someday in your future.

Here We Aren't

When I was a young boy my brother and I sat in the backseat of our family car on road trips. If the trip was long we did what most kids do – we asked our father, “Are we there yet?” I remember the day when my badgering questions came to an end. 

When I asked for the umpteenth time, “Are we there yet?” My dad said in an excited voice, “Here we aren’t!” There was a moment of silence as my brother and I tried to figure out what our father had just said. I sounded like, “Here we are!” but we knew that wasn’t right. Dad turned around and smiled at us and continued driving. It was on that day that we stopped asking the “Are we there yet?” kind of questions and just enjoyed the drive. I was nine years old.

Some of us who follow Jesus can ask the same kind of question. We think the best things in life are at some future destination, always ahead of us. We toss around words like destiny and promise thinking we are not already at those destinations. This continual quest for something more sounds good and can actually appear spiritual, but it can also be a mask that hides our dissatisfaction and a lack of peace.

True spirituality contains the understanding that if your life ended today there is really nothing more for you to gain or accomplish. You possess the greatest gift of unimaginable worth. Your destiny has already been fulfilled for you by Jesus and it is waiting for your arrival in eternity. All the promises you have been given have the word “Yes” written across their face even if you are no longer physically alive to see them fulfilled in this lifetime.

You will know when you have come to this new level of maturity when, in your continual asking God for things you already possess, He gives you an answer similar to the one my earthly father gave to me and you actually understand the answer. Your eternal destination is your destiny. Everything you need to know, do and possess has been given to you in and for this moment. Enjoy the journey. Do the best you can. Rest in His presence. You have already arrived. Knowing that makes for a peaceful journey.

Introducing the Church to the Unknown God

As I began to prepare to speak at a conference on the subject of reformation, the Lord took me to Acts 17. In that section of Scripture, Paul was traveling through the city of Athens, Greece. Athens was known as the city of 10,000 gods. Just to be safe and cover all their bases, the city officials erected an idol titled, To An Unknown God. When Paul spoke to the leaders of the city he said he was there to introduce them to the God who was unknown to them. 

Paul's ministry in Athens reminds me of what God wants to do through the ministry of reformers in the Church in our present day. In every season of transformation within the Church, we will encounter aspects of God either forgotten or not yet experienced in this generation.  God has not become unknown from the point of our salvation, but unknown to us in the new and miraculous expressions of His Majesty that a reformation will bring.

Introducing the Church to unknown aspects of God is the essence of reformation. Don't live in fear when change invites you to consider a greater understanding of God than you currently possess. Faith is not about settling in or becoming so comfortable with what you know of God and the Church that you shut yourself off from something new and unfamiliar. A living faith will release fresh revelation and with that fresh revelation will come a greater revelation of God and the mission of the Church in ways we have not yet considered. In a reformation what was unknown will become known and that will change everything.

The Six Questions

These are the six questions at the bottom of my daily prayer sheet that have been in my bible for the last 15 years. After praying through the daily list at the top of the sheet, I come to these questions and make myself answer them honestly before the Lord. When we let God search our heart, He helps us discover those things, that if left unchallenged, would prevent us from experiencing the full measure of His love.

This Wall Of Judgment

A wall of judgment sprang up in front of you without warning. A comment someone made has caused this wall to appear and its presence is impeding your forward motion. You have slammed hard against its cold and rejecting presence. The judgment this comment produced has now become a spiritual stop sign impeding your forward progress. You have to deal with it or you will not be able to move forward. It is strange how one comment can so completely derail how you feel and bring your life to a sudden stop.

The comment you are reacting to is not the real problem neither is your reaction.  The hidden root issue that triggered your reaction is the real issue.  Follow the fruit of your response down through the branches and limbs of your feelings through the trunk of your being down to the lowest place in your emotional root structure.  It will be in this deepest place hidden beneath life’s gritty relational soil that you will discover the lie that awaits the clipping shears of truth.

#23 The Threat Of Mercy

(“Thoughts I Want To Leave Behind” is a collection of thoughts and impressions I want to leave behind as I begin to make my final pastoral transition.) 

#23 The Threat Of Mercy

Mercy is a threat to a religious spirit.  A religious spirit controls people with the fear of separation and expulsion for each violation of law. To the merciless there is no world beyond the boundary of broken law. They cannot see the promise land of hope and grace that exists on the other side of human failure. 

Mercy asks questions that makes merciless people nervous – “Where are your accusers?” Mercy causes self-righteous religious gangs to put down their rocks and walk away. Mercy lists a prostitute in a God-genealogy. Mercy allows an adulterous king to retain his title – “A man after God’s own heart.” Mercy invites a three-time loser disciple to try again and “Follow Me”.

The evidence that you are a mercy-giver will be two-fold.  You will be crucified by the controlling religious establishment, but loved by those to whom you extend mercy.  These redeemed ones will be filled with joy and gratitude by your presence in their lives.  To the ones holding rocks of judgment you will become their new target. Embrace both of these realities because this is the path that Mercy walked and this is the path He is asking you to walk in your journey of faith.

Dear Anonymous

Dear Anonymous

You have visited all our lives from time to time.  You come shrouded in the perceived safety of anonymity to deliver your comments of dissatisfaction and dishonor.  Your words find a way into the comment section of blogs, websites or get delivered by mail without a return address.

To those of us who receive your painful words we know you struggle with things other than the thoughts we express.  You struggle with your own fear.  This is the kind of fear that has prevented you from sharing your own feelings in an honest face-to-face conversation with another person.  Somewhere someone may have rejected your opinion.  If this happened to you, I am sorry. Imagine what could happen if you did not live in the prison of our own doubt and fear – we might even enjoy each other’s company.

I remember the first time you wrote to me. I went away wounded from your one-sided assault.  This wounding no longer takes place in me because over the years, I have learned to pray for you and bless you.  I did this, not because my life or opinion is more valuable than yours.  I did this because this is the only way I have found to not live my life inside your prison. Dear Anonymous, recently your wrote to me again, and as before, I chose bless you.