I Choose Jesus

The afternoon sun was hot on my face in the Target parking lot as she talked about the "real Christian" girl she knows. I know my face must've contorted when she said it or she wouldn't have felt the need to explain herself. 

She said, "You know. A 'real' Christian, like you. You know how you read your bible every day and witness to people and stuff?" 

My heart broke. 

It doesn't work that way. We don't live on a scale. 

Thank Jesus. 

No really, thank Jesus. 

That thought, the one that made her feel 'less than' when she compared herself to me or the girl she works with, that was nothing but conviction telling her what she already knows. She should read her bible more. She should pray more. She should go to church more. But not because it'll push her up a few notches on this fictitious Christian scale. She should want to do those things to draw near to her Savior. Trust me, that relationship is a beautiful thing when you can no longer trust your own strength to carry you. 

I know why we don't do those things sometimes. I'm guilty of it, too. We don't like feeling convicted, and conviction has a way of slapping you in the face when you open The Good Book or hit your knees in prayer. 

I had just finished explaining to this beautiful soul why I started Luke's Legacy, essentially witnessing to her, and she wanted to share another woman's story. As she started, the devil whispered a little lie into her ear that she isn't a "real" Christian because her works don't measure up to mine.

I wish I could tell you that I said, "Not today, Satan!" and straightened her thinking out right then and there. I'll be honest though, I was surprised (and okay-fine, a little flattered) so much by her statement that I missed an opportunity to tell her that my works don't make me the follower of Christ that I am. And they certainly won't get me to heaven. If I said otherwise, it would make me no better than the Pharisees that crucified Jesus. 

What she sees are fruits of the Spirit that resides in me, but they are certainly not the way to get to Heaven. Nope, there's only one Way. 

That's Jesus. 

Thank You, Jesus. 

What she sees are the products of my walk with The Lord. Evidence. Nothing more.

Now, is there evidence in your life? If not, maybe you should ask yourself if you're really saved. That's not up to me to decide, or anyone else for that matter. 

That's between you and Jesus. 

I can tell you this though. There isn't a scale that ranks Christians in order of their authenticity. There's either Salvation or not. 

Grace or not. 

Hope or not. 

Victory or not. 

Jesus or not. 

I choose Jesus.   

John 14:6-7 NIV

[6] Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. [7] If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” …

Heavy Love

It's hard to love like Jesus does. He loves everyone. Every. Single. Person. And He all loves us all the same. He loves us so much that he died to save us from our own weak, sinful selfs. Think about that kind of love for a second, and tell me that you can love every single person on this earth that way. 

Love every single murderer, rapist, and pedophile that way. Jesus does. 

Love every single racist, radical Islamist, and Neo-Nazi that way. Jesus does. 

Love every single homosexual, heterosexual, Democrat, Republican, black person, brown person, white person that way. Jesus does. 

Love every single sinner on this planet that way. Jesus does. 

He loves us. All of us. And there is not a single string attached. All we have to do is accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, ask Him into our heart, and live our life walking closely with Him. 

That kind of Love can be heavy. 

I've watched it become so heavy that I can no longer tell who has that kind of Love in their heart and who doesn't. Even when I'm sitting inside a church. We shouldn't have to play a guessing game to tell who follows Christ and who doesn't. It should show with every word we utter and with every step and breath we take. 

I've watched while a country, who should be rallying around and comforting each other, break out into social media wars over gun rights and presidential candidates. Our job is to spread the Gospel, not anger. Get out there and do your duties. Love your fellow man, all of them, and show them the Love that changed your life so that it can bring them the same Peace it brought you. 

I've watched Christians assign weights to different sins and arrogantly decide that they are somehow better than others because their sin doesn't show quite as badly. Visible sins are not greater than invisible sin, and invisible sins are not invisible to God. They're all the same, and you'll never be able to love like Jesus if you can't see that.

I've watched finger pointing and read meaningless arguments over whether Christianity is more or less violent than Islam. We shouldn't have to argue it or prove it if we're showing it. And sadly, a lot of us are not showing Love. We're not showing anything. 

I've watched Christians spin a moment in which they should've been sharing the Gospel and spreading a message of Hope, Peace, and Love into a moment that's prime for arguing over the reasons why. It's not 'us against them,' it's 'us against the devil,' and we let the devil win every time we choose pride or fear over sharing the Love of Jesus. 

These attacks. These disasters. These horrible, terrible things that happen to our people, the American people, are not a surprise to God. Each and every one of them is opportunity to serve, love, and teach our fellow man. 

Get out there and do it. 

Finding Peace in my Not So Quiet Time

I have struggled for as long as I can remember to find the time to read my Bible and really be still and listen to God. I'd try different times in the day, but, in the words of my uncle, God's cow always dies. The hour Id try to set aside before I went to bed would be stolen by time with my hubs, time to clean, or time to rock my sweet baby one more time. After years of trying to find a place and time to spend time with Him, I finally decided that I was just going to have to make time. Carve it out of my busy schedule and make it a priority.

Each morning, my alarm clock goes off about thirty minutes before I actually have to wake up, and I drag myself out of bed to sit in my oversized arm chair with my Bible and a cup of coffee so I can listen to what God wants me to hear. I make it a priority and I prepare for it. I know myself and I know that I will not wake up on the first alarm, so I set a second alarm in the kitchen. (Yes, it really is that hard to wake me up.) I'm not all about mornings unless I have a cup of coffee in my hand, so I make sure to set my coffee pot every night before I go to bed. The blessings that I receive from my mornings spent with God are so rewarding that I am happy to sacrifice the half an hour of sleep to do it. 

For the past week, my quiet time has been interrupted and sometimes abruptly halted by a certain little cutie pie. He has been going through a sleep regression (or maybe it's the time change), and he wakes up with the chickens every morning. Sometimes he wakes up before my alarm clock even goes off. Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of my bible study. Either way, he's been a hindrance to my ability to be still and meditate on God's word. I'd be lying if I said that this hasn't bothered me. My unfinished business plagues me all day when I have these adorable little interruptions. 

After praying over my new dilemma for a few days, I thought maybe God is trying to teach me something here. 

At first I thought He was definitely trying to teach me patience. I prayed for patience when J was about three months old after I'd had some struggles at work while I was also trying to get a handle on juggling a new school year with an infant. It was only afterwards that I truly understood that God doesn't just give you anything. You have to earn it, and boy did I ever earn patience! So in the first couple of days after I started having a little partner during my Bible study, I just thought He was continuing my lesson in patience. Until, that is, I saw my sweet baby bring his Bible story book to me to look at in my lap while I was reading my Bible. He watched me intently and if I picked up a highlighter to mark a verse, he needed one for his book. If I reached for a pen to annotate, he'd immediately need to jot down a 'note' in the margins of his little book. It was like God was telling me, "He learns by watching, mama, and you are setting a great example."

I broke down in tears. Not from pride, but from shame. I was so ashamed of myself for thinking of his presence in my quiet time as a nuisance when it was actually the most positive influence that I could ever really have on my child. Don't get me wrong, teaching him to survive in his earthly home is pretty important, but teaching him how to have a relationship with his Heavenly Father is the most important

I spent years craving a real relationship with Jesus Christ, never really knowing how to achieve one. Just going through the motions hoping for a miracle. But, I have the opportunity to let my child learn how to have a meaningful relationship with Him by being a good example of how to make God a priority not an afterthought. 

Maybe he will always know what to do.

Maybe he won't ever have to know what it feels like to miss God.

Maybe he won't ever have to wonder what a blessing it is to feel God speak to you. 

And maybe that's all because mama showed him what it meant to put God first. 

Proverbs 22:6

Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.

Our society: Christians are bigots and we accept everything but God.

Reading the news (loosely used) posts
on social media can easily leave you despondent and sad these days. Even when you see posts that should make you happy, like people lifting up Christianity, all you have to do is scroll through the comments for a little while to lose your short lived smile. Case in point, a picture of a GOP Presidential candidate holding up a sign that says 'I am a Christian' quickly got him labeled a 'bigot.' I went from optimistic to tearful in about two seconds flat.

How is he a bigot? Because he's a Christian? Because he has conservative and yes, Christian, views? Do we really live in a world where we aren't allowed to have our own religious views without being labeled? Bigotry is the act of being intolerant of the views of others...not the single act of having an opposing view. Since we're throwing words around, I've got one, too: hypocrite. Hypocrisy is the act of having moral standards or beliefs to which one own's behavior does not conform, and I am sure that calling someone a bigot for simply holding a different view than yours is a prime example of hypocrisy. Simply being a Christian cannot make a person a bigot.

So why the labels? The biggest reason, in my opinion, is that society has a skewed view of Christianity. I think, for the most part, the most vocal non-Christians believe that Christians are arrogant, holier-that-though, bigots. Part of this is human nature. We as humans are naturally sinners and we're worldly, prideful creatures. Non-Christians hear that they are sinners and incapable of ever being 'good enough' and immediately they rebel. The fact so many of the non-Christians with this clouded, negative view of Christianity are very open and vocal with their opinions only compounds the negative impact that they can have on our witness to the world. 

Another (harder to talk about) reason that the world's view of Christians is clouded is that we as Christians have done a poor job of being the body of Christ. We've been complacent, for the most part, and the world has risen up to meet us. Many people are pushed away from Christianity by Christians, the very people that are supposed to be leading others to Christ. For example, I read about how Justin Bieber has discovered Jesus Christ and wants to model his life after Him. As a high school teacher, I see students every day who are trying to model themselves after celebrities,  and I was ecstatic to see one of those celebrities admitting that he needs Jesus and wants to live his life for Him...and then I read the comments. There were so many Christians who were saying things like, "I'll believe it when I see it" or "all he knows is the liberal, love-everything-and-everybody version of Christ." Is that really our job as Christians? To question every new believer's authenticity? I'm sure it's not, and we need to do a better job of being the body of Christ and nurturing new Christians. 

I recently spent some time reading and praying over a few verses in Ephesians explaining how a follower of Christ should live. I was surprised and humbled by many of the guidelines. As many of my readers know, I asked Jesus to come into my heart when I was very young. I lived as a 'Christian' for fifteen years before I realized that I was completely wrong about what it meant to really be a Christian and what it really looks like to live as a Christian. Christianity is not about being perfect, it's about recognizing that you will never be perfect and that you are in desperate need of God's Saving Grace. I think that Christians, as a whole, are doing a poor job of displaying the humility that it takes to carry yourself as a recognized sinner every day. 

What I think this (increasingly non-Christian) society needs to understand is that just because we love someone doesn't mean that we have to accept their sins...and that accepting their sins as 'the way they are' is definitely not loving them. Especially if you are a follower of Jesus Christ. Christ has a love for us that surpasses all knowledge, but he will still deny us in front of The Father if we do not accept Him into our hearts as our personal Lord and Savior. This sets an example for us, I think. We are told to love our neighbors as more important than ourselves, but that means we are to love them enough and so much that we don't sit by and unconcernedly watch them sinning.

And don't even get me started on the 'Christians' who openly condone sinning in the name of 'acceptance.' You can't watch a talk show without seeing sin being openly celebrated and excused by celebrities saying, "If that's what makes him happy, who am I to stand in his way?" Really? Don't you think you are opening yourself up for interpretation there? There are a lot of things that make a lot of people happy that are not okay even by this society's low moral standards. Some people are sexually attracted to animals, so "who are we to stand in his way" if someone wants to marry his shih tzu? Do you see what kind of terrible turns that road can lead you down? Regardless of your religion, society CANNOT keep this up; we have to draw a line somewhere.We need to stop sinning by silence and hiding behind 'don't judge lest ye be judged.' Those verses explain that you must remove your own sin before helping your neighbor to remove his, not that we should ignore our neighbor's sin completely under the guise of 'acceptance.' We also need to stop using God's Grace as an excuse to keep sinning. Yes, God loves you no matter what and yes, he will forgive you an infinite amount of times, BUT you have to genuinely ask got His forgiveness. Perpetually living in sin and occasionally (and casually) asking God to forgive you for those sins misses the mark completely.

Loving a Man with a Servant's Heart

Your grass needs to be cut. There are weeds threatening to take over your patio. The back splash in the kitchen isn't sticking to the wall properly and your coffee bar has been slightly unfinished for the past six months. Your husband has a list of honey-dos a mile long, and he never seems to get a single thing accomplished around the house.

He isn't lazy. Oh no, he's the antithesis of lazy. He's always busy. He almost never gets a spare minute to himself, let alone to spend with you or the kids.

So, what is he doing with all of his time? He's helping. It's what he does.

Does this sound familiar to you? Well congratulations, sister, you have the privilege of loving a man with a servant's heart. It may not be convenient for anyone in your family, but your husband was blessed with the ability to help those in need. It goes deeper than that though, this man wants to help people. He is at his best when he is doing things for others. God blesses each of us with a gift, and this desire to help happens to be his.

I've gone through many emotions loving and learning to live with this man with a servant's heart. We have fought over unfinished projects and cluttered storage sheds. We've argued about uncut grass and unfixed appliances. I've bickered over ungrateful friends who always lean on him but never return the kindness. I've stewed silently in my own anger over the fact that we had to spend yet another afternoon waiting on daddy to finish doing someone else a favor.

I've been neglected. I've been pushed aside. I've been told that my needs are going to have to wait more times than I like to think about.

But I've also felt pride on a level that I didn't know possible. I've felt love grow bigger than life for unassuming reasons that sometimes make me laugh. I've watched my husband work, and I mean really work, until midnight just to get his lawnmower ready and loaded to go help someone cut grass the next day.
My child and I have been dragged out of bed on Saturdays because my husband has to do something for someone. While we're both sleepy eyed and grumpy, he's just as chipper as a song bird because he thrives on helping people. He's the type of person that will literally give you the shirt off of his back and smile while he's doing it.

He never expects payment or repayment; he usually won't accept if it is offered to him. He doesn't even want it. He is content just to know that he has helped someone in need. Whether it's help with some type of work or help with money, he is just happy to help. He is generous in a way that I find inspiring.

It's sad that I haven't understood that until now. We could have saved ourselves a lot of arguments and hurt feelings had I figured this out earlier.

So why the change of heart? I've spent years concentrating on the parts of my husband that I think need to change. (I think that's a practice that I learned from "How to Ruin your Marriage 101") This desire to help people was close to the top of my list. I just couldn't stand the way that people always took advantage of him. I would always ask him, "would he do the same thing for you?" when G was asked a favor. Regardless of the reply, he would always go do whatever it was that was asked of him. Then one day I realized that the way I was living and thinking wasn't glorifying to God. I prayed that Jesus would come into my heart, my whole heart, that he would look into the darkest, dustiest corners and shine the Light in. After this literal change of heart, I started seeing these selfless acts that my husband was compelled to do as God's Work. He might not have been raised in a bible-thumping, pew-jumping household, but he is more Christ-like than me in so many ways.

He sees a need and he fills it. He shows his love for other human beings by just simply doing what God has called him to do with the abilities that God blessed him with. I always talk about how Christians should do a better job of "walking the walk," but I was overlooking one of the best examples of showing Christ's love through actions that I have ever known. He lives in my house with me and I have the blessing of having him as my partner in raising children.

So, we may spend many afternoons waiting on daddy to get finished doing yet another favor. We may have to walk by our unfinished coffee bar ten times a day while G is out working, but it's okay. I'm happy to do it. I wouldn't dare change a thing.

Philippians 2:3-5
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus...

No Bruce, I will not call you Caitlyn.

I'm sure we've all seen the picture of Bruce Jenner on the cover of Vanity Fair laying across a bed dressed as a woman asking the world to call him Caitlyn. Not only is he dressed as a woman, he has the physique of a woman. If you didn't know any better, you would think he was a woman...and a pretty woman at that. I'm also sure that we have all formulated our own opinions on Bruce and his new identity, but I just want to take a second to remind everyone that it's not our job to judge him. No, you see, God ordained Jesus to be the judge. So while we sit around and criticize him, I would like to remind us all that we too are sinners. Our sins are just not as visible. 

I was scrolling through Facebook when I noticed status after status of Christians outwardly judging this man for his choices. Now I'm sure we all read the same Bible, so tell me where it is written that our job as Christians is to decide who does and does not deserve God's grace. I'm actually certain that Jesus told us in his own words, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Those words are written in red, people. I am not trying to come off as holier than though and the last thing I want to do here is seem argumentative, but it seems to me that some of my fellow Christians need to remember the Grace saved them from themselves before they stand on their Facebook soapbox and spew judgement onto others.

Maybe what Bruce Jenner really needs is for Christians to show him a little grace. We do not know what kind of hurtles he has had to cross in his life. We think we do because he has been in the public eye for so long, but we only see a portion of what his life is like. He has been misguided and damaged and the only thing that we are going to accomplish with judgement and criticism is to push him further and further away.

Recently God has opened my eyes to the way some Christians are pushing people away from Christianity. It continues to amaze me how God works; this time he used a student. I was speaking with a student on his last day of school and he explained to me that he is no longer a Christian. Just out of the blue like that. Keep in mind that I have spoken to this student every day of the past school year, and this boy all of a sudden decides to tell me this. I never pry, but I am sure you can understand that I get concerned when I learn that one of my students doesn't know Jesus Christ as his/her Lord and Savior. So, I gently asked why he had such a change of heart. He explained that the biggest reason that he isn't a Christian is the way he has been treated by Christians. Do you see how ludicrous that is? Christians, whose job it is to lead people to Christ, are pushing people away. It is almost enough to bring me to tears. So, I'm using my blog as a platform to shout to other Christians, "Stop pushing other sinners away from Christ!" 

Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with Bruce Jenner's choice to become a woman. I don't think it's his choice to make, and I know that God does not make mistakes. I don't agree with homosexuality, same-sex marriage, or sex changes, but that's not the point. The point is that no one, regardless of life choices, should be treated differently than anyone else. I try not to treat the people that I don't agree with any differently than I would the most right-wing, bible-thumping, pew-jumping, Child of God. Sinners come in all shapes and sizes. Just because we can see the sins of some people more clearly than others does not mean that those people don't deserve the same grace. 

Bruce has a mother, and most of my readers are mothers. Imagine that your son became misguided and lost. Imagine he made bad choices and started going down the wrong road. Wouldn't you want someone to show him grace? Wouldn't you want someone to lead him down the path of righteousness? Of course you would. The last thing you would want would be for people to spew judgement on him for the world to see or for Christians to decide that he was no longer worthy of salvation. 

I think our job as Christians in this ever-changing world is to stand firm and continue our role as the Body of Christ with open arms, healing hands, and loving hearts. So no, Bruce, we will not call you Caitlyn, but we will call you Brother and we will pray that one day we will call you Redeemed. 

Matthew 7:1-2

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.