Son, you need to look through the scope at the things that are far away, but you also need to take your eye away long enough to see what’s close.
Love cares more about who’s hurting than who’s watching.
The sad fact is, many of us have lost our way trying to help people find theirs. Arguments won’t change people. Simply giving away kindness won’t either. Only Jesus has the power to change people, and it will be harder for them to see Jesus if their view of him is blocked by our big opinions.
They give away love like they’re made of it.
What I like about Jesus is that He didn’t try to recruit people or use spin. Neither He nor His disciples ever said they were going on a mission trip, because they weren’t. He just invited everyone and said they could follow Him.
Friends do – they don’t just think about it.
The promise of love and grace in our lives is this: Our worst day isn’t bad enough, and our best day isn’t good enough. We’re invited because we’re loved, not because we earned it.
The kind of adventure Jesus has invited us on doesn’t require an application or prerequisites. It’s just about deciding to take up the offer made by a father who wants us to come.
I used to be afraid that if I was authentic I might take a hit, but now I know that being real means I will take a hit.
Grace works that way. It’s a kind word from a gentle person with an impossible prayer.
Barriers make me feel right, and that makes me feel safe. I think this is something we all do to some degree, and there’s no shame in that. Except it’s not what Jesus did. He showed us what it means to become love when He spent His last meal with a man who He knew would betray Him and then willingly died a criminal’s death.
The thing I love about God is He intentionally guides people into failure. He made us be born as little kids who can’t walk or talk or even use a bathroom correctly. We have to be taught everything. All that learning takes time, and He made us so we are dependent on Him, our parents, and each other. The whole thing is designed so we try again and again until we finally get it right. And the whole time He is endlessly patient.
But like my BB gun, what Christ-followers lack in velocity, they make up for in intensity. They are people who have experienced an intensely intimate friendship with Jesus and move forward with an intensity to parallel that experience.
Yet Jesus continues to select broken and splattered people not just as followers, but as participants. He called people like me who can’t even figure out which way to turn a screw to tighten it or even stack a cake correctly the ones who would build a kingdom. And then, if we’re willing, He serves us up – rocks, small bits of asphalt, and all.
Am I the right guy? I don’t know, but I’m the guy being asked, and the last thing I want to do is miss an opportunity or make God mad, so I just keep saying yes. Maybe God is doing some inexplicable things in your life. Each of us gets to decide every time whether to lean in or step back – to say yes, ignore it, or tell God why He has the wrong person.
If we did that, we wouldn’t get confused about who was really making things happen. Not surprisingly, we’d get a lot more done too, because we wouldn’t care who’s looking or taking credit. All that energy would be funneled into awesomeness. Even then, though, don’t take the bait that if we do incredible things Jesus will dig us more. He can’t. He already digs us more. And more than that, our pictures are already in His wallet.
Every day God invites us on an adventure. It’s not a trip where He sends us a rigid itinerary, He simply invites us.
You don’t need to know everything when you’re with someone you trust.
Finding things and losing things is what the Bible is all about. God even seemed to encourage it. He talked about losing your job, or even your life, if you want to find it. He talked about losing your status to find real power.
The problem is, the Bible said the only weapon any of us really has is love. But it’s love like a sword without a handle and because of that, sometimes we’ll get cut when we pick it up. It’s supposed to be close contact, though. Love always is that way. I don’t think Bible verses were meant to be thrown like grenades at each other. They were meant for us to use to point each other toward love and grace and invite us into something much bigger.