On Leading to the Cross

Without Easter our faith would mean nothing. What hope do we have with the resurrection of Jesus Christ? 

This week my heart has been dwelling on the Cross. Many years the Easter holiday seems to come and go as just another excuse to eat Reese's eggs and Jolly Rancher jellybeans and wear pretty dresses. Those things are nice. But they totally miss the point. 

Last Sunday night at youth group as Kevin was announcing the church's Easter events coming up, the teens kept excitedly referencing candy and the Easter bunny. Between my heart's focus on the Cross and not-so-great-attitude I had that night, I got really upset at these antics really fast. I wasn't mad at the teens specifically, but at the grotesque misunderstanding society has of Easter. 

God moved in my heart to lead these students to the Cross, to their knees, to their Savior. With his prodding I gathered music for three songs whose words envelope the richness of the death and resurrection of Jesus. They needed to come face to face with the reality of the situation--to know the immense pain Jesus endured even after beseeching God to remove the cup from him. But he was obedient to the Father's will, even to the point of death. His blood poured out for you, for me. Because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. And so He covered us in perfect redemption. 

But without the third day, we have no hope, no future, no full life. Our God not only redeemed us through the crucifixion, but He didn't let death defeat his Son. 

He is RISEN. 

Lead me to the cross, where your love poured out. 

Bring me to my knees, Lord, I lay me down. 

Rid me of myself, I belong to you. 

Lord, lead me. Lead me to the cross. 

[lead me to the cross by hillsong]
Listen here. Soak in the power of the Cross.

On Seeking Perfection

I am Melanie, and I am letting go of perfection. 

This is a scary thing for two reasons. 1) I am a seeker of perfection and have often driven myself crazy as I strive. 2) Doesn't Jesus call us to be perfect just as He is perfect? 

Yes, he does, but he doesn't call us to work and achieve and beat ourselves up when we fail. He calls us to himself, He draws us near, and the closer we become to His heart, the more in unison our hearts will beat with His. The goal is not the trying, the striving. The goal is to be Holy as I AM is Holy. We can only reach such perfection when we release our efforts and accept the life changing, new-covenant-making, total atonement of the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. 

He became our once-for-all sacrificial lamb. 

This doesn't mean we give up, stop seeking, or accept our sinful state as part of the deal. Absolutely NOT. By receiving that redemptive blood of Christ over your sinful heart, you have been given new life. We begin to stumble along beside our Master and experience discipleship for all it's worth. We are created to learn from Him, to long to be like Him. 

It all starts with believing in the Lord Jesus and accepting His all-surpassing grace and love into our lives. Then we offer all we have back to him--our love. Jesus will know the truth of our love by our obedience, and our obedience is simply the outpouring of our heart's desire to love Him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.  

There is no striving, no achieving involved. Only grace. Only love. Only pursuit of the One who has given us life. We can't know our Lord intimately and not experience His holiness as a part of our life. He commanded us to be perfect, knowing it would be the natural result of a life truly and wholly in love with Him. 

Freedom.

On Bearing with the Bothersome

My thoughts are flowing right alongside Kevin's. 

Ever since I had to do some serious conflict management on Sunday morning (and night), I've been thinking about how God wants us to live at peace with everyone.

This does not mean to shove things so far under the rug that we forget about them. 

NO. 

Because in doing so, we're actually fostering bitterness.

And bitterness not only tears us apart from our core, but it lies dormant until another sliver gets shoved into our fingertips, and then another and another, until we are so full of ache and pain and anger that we explode on the last person who offends us. 

This is not how we are to live. 

Jesus, via James, addresses this issue when he says, "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from the desires that battle within you? 

You want something, but don't get it."

Most of our conflicts are rooted in selfishness. 

And that selfishness may not be evident, but I believe it's selfish to shove the issues under the rug. 

It's selfish to "fake the peace."

It's also selfish to blame the other person for your pain and suffering.

We must approach the offender with LOVE. 

Explain our feelings, the way we interpreted their words and actions--not condemning them, but revealing our own hurt. 

Prayerfully, they will see where they felt wronged and where they acted out in sin. 

Forgiveness is requested and granted. 

And though the situation may still ache for a while, because true forgiveness has been granted, each party is able to leave with a clear spirit.

And eventually..move on. 

Yes, conflicts may divide even the closest of friends for a time, 

but the other issue is simply that we don't always get along with certain individuals. 

They get under our skin and irritate us to the point of frustration and anger. 

We can NOT let this happen. 

The New Testament reminds me often that we are to "bear with one another."

We are commanded to lovingly put up with those who bother us, those who just don't get it, those who start arguments because they have nothing better to do.

Bear with each other, and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

We will never reach the level of forgiveness God has bestowed on our lives, covering ALL of our sins, 

so we might as well suck it up and keep forgiving.

On Conflicts...and long-suffering

Recently, I've been reminded of how Christians tend to be. Unfortunately we're not all that different from everyone else when it comes to how we handle conflict. I think the sheer number of denominations (and non-denominational churches) in America should stand as a pretty fair witness to our inability to resolve serious conflict.

But rather than pine over a solution I'm not likely to find, I want to talk a bit about what I've been thinking about...personal conflict.

Matthew 18 shows us the way to handle this.  First one-on-one, then taking along another (uninvolved) party, then take it to the church, then just let it go and move on. The Bible says to treat him "as a tax collector."

Rabbit Trail: How do you treat the IRS?

I wonder how many church splits Matthew 18 could have fixed. What if Christians actually bothered to take the Bible's 'guidelines' as mandates that we are REQUIRED to follow? See we Americans tend to look at the Bible as a list of suggestions that we can pick from, like an all you can eat buffet. We take heaping piles of God's promises of prosperity, and virtually ignore the meat and potatoes of Christianity...Forgiveness and Service.

God says that if we don't forgive our brother, we won't be forgiven.

God also says that if we don't Love our brother, we don't really Love God.

Huh.

Beyond that, 1 Corinthians has some interesting things to say about conflict. The Corinthian church was having an issue of lawsuits between believers, so Paul wrote to encourage them, saying "Why not rather be wronged?" Interesting thought. How many of those 'big deal' conflicts that we get into inside (and outside) the church could be solved if we were to simply let go of our sense of entitlement when it comes to how other people 'should' treat us?

Now I'm not saying you never mention it to them, but say I go to my friend Tom, who's been a terrible jerk to me. I tell him that I've been offended by how he has treated me, and I ask him to stop. He says to shove off, because I was a jerk to him first (which I obviously would disagree with). Instead of getting into an argument about who was more wrong...why not apologize for whatever we did to offend him, restate that we would like him to change...and then move on without demanding an apology on the spot.

Lets look at that situation from their point of view...you came and said they were wrong...they get to say you were wrong...and you apologize immediately. Then you politely ask that they be nicer, or stop whatever it was that made you feel bad in the first place.

You're a whole lot more likely to get somewhere with them if you're nice, eh?

But even if Tom doesn't get the point...and he's horribly stubborn. It's still better to let it go. You could demand that he change, and spend your time being frustrated by it...or you can be patient and let it be water under the bridge. Either way, you're unlikely to get him to change his behavior, so why not decide to focus on other things? As Christians, we're more effective when focusing on what we can do for others rather than on what we wish other people would do for us.

Stop being selfish when you're fighting...it just leads to more fighting.