I wrote this letter to remind myself what my selfish nature can and will do to me if I cease to submit my whole being to Christ everyday. Though it is incredibly detailed and shocking and harsh, it might actually be truer than you are giving your own sin nature credit for. I encourage you to read this as if it were the monster inside of you that is writing to you:

Dear ______,

I am the monster inside of you;

I am here to prey upon your soul.

If you cease to fight me,

I will take you under and punish you to no end. 

I want to eat you alive...slowly.

I hate you with all that I am.

I want to ruin your whole life,

Inside and out. 

If you even give me the slightest pathway into your life,

This is what I will do:

I will destroy your marriage. 

Your wife will learn to resent you. 

She will put all her hopes and dreams in you only to get them smashed and dashed to the ground. 

She will be disappointed in you. 

She will give you up. 

She will even leave you. 

I can already picture her resting happily in the arms of another man...a man who can control himself. 

She will forget about you as quickly as she can. 

I want to destroy your ministry. 

I will let you speak in front of many just so they can find out later that you're a total fake. 

Every kid you speak to will live up to your lousy example. 

No guy will grow up as a pure man. All the girls will think they have to be "more beautiful" because they aren't enough - even to you. 

I will ruin their lives because of you!

But most of all, I want to keep you groveling in the sewage tanks of shame and despair. Every time you build a shred of confidence, I will dash you back to the ground lest you rise to enjoy intimacy with the Hated King. 

Your spiritual demise is my greatest prize. I will suck every last drop of spiritual life out of your veins. 

You will never get close to Him because one thing will always stand in the way: YOU!

I want desperately to destroy every single part of your very existence. 

I hate you so much!

Sincerely,

The Monster Inside of You

P.S. I'm already dreaming of incredibly gory things for your own children. I can't wait!

You have been given a clean slate.
What will you write on it this year?

It's the new year: 2013!

   A clean slate.
    A new story to write.
     New expectations.
      New visions.
       New...everything.

   There is new rocks left overturned. There are new destinies to be explored. There are new destinations to be reached. There are new mountains to climb. You have been given the gift a new start.

   The new year excites me. I love for things to be clean and organized. I think better when there isn't any clutter (like when my bedroom is finally organized!). So I love the new year. I can finally think clearly about what is coming up.

   A few years ago, a local itinerate preacher was speaking about how he doesn't make new year resolutions. Instead, he makes a new theme for himself each year. The Spirit convicted then. I stopped making new year resolutions. Instead, I, too, began to make a theme for myself each year. In the past years of making themes, I have noticed that I am living out the theme for the first month or two, and then around March, or so, I forget about it. I usually remembered it again about October. So in recent years, I have begun to put into action specific steps to help me live out that theme.

   This year, my theme is "More Jesus." I chose that theme based on Galatians 5:16-17. It says,

"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in oppositions to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please."

   In other words, we have warring desires within us. And the way to defeat our desire for the flesh is not to kill all desire, but to walk by the Spirit and desire Jesus. We must put more Jesus into our lives. Click here to learn more about the More Jesus Movement. In our jobs, in our relationships, in our prayer, in our thoughts, in our finances, and everything else, we need more Jesus. We must increase our desire for Jesus in order to defeat our desire for the flesh. This is my theme for 2013.

   How about you? What is your new year resolution or theme? Do you have one? I encourage you to be intentional about this next year. Don't let last year's mistakes creep up on you again.

   What will you do in 2013 about your relationship with Jesus? How will you plan on growing closer to him?  How will you intentionally love him with you time, with your resources, or with your relationships?

Is rest merely a state of motionlessness or inactivity?

“Our lives are occupied territory…

Occupied by a cacophony of voices,

And the din undoes us.

In the daytime we have no time to listen,

Beset as we are by anxiety and goals

And assignments and work…”

It is one commodity that everyone wants, but no one knows what to do with it. Rest is that great desire that is ever within the reach of this production-driven society, but it is rarely enjoyed by even the strongest. In a world where production and consumerism are what shape identity, we find ourselves weary from a standard that can never be met. The goal always seems to be on the horizon. There is never an end to the toil and striving. And at the end of the day, there is no rest. We are deficient even of a working understanding of this richly biblical concept. Some common definitions of rest seem helpful, but still lacking:

A bodily state characterized by minimal functional and metabolic activities,

Freedom from activity or labor,

A state of motionlessness or inactivity, or

Peace of mind or spirit.

These modern definitions are helpful, but they fall short of the Old Testament biblical understanding of rest, or shabat. Throughout the Old Testament, the concept of rest is developed as not only an economic cessation from production, but also a theological act of trust in the sovereign Provider. For Israel, there was rich meaning infused in the halt of their production.

Shabat can be defined as “regular, disciplined, visible cessation of production.” This was a day for Israel to stop productive work and what could be considered “normal” activities. This Sabbath came to be for the Jews a visible, regular discipline that distinguished them from the general culture in which they were living their lives. Though there was some sort of shabat practiced in various nations around them, the shabat practiced by the Israelites was both economic – a refusal to define oneself by a sense of productivity – and theological – and active form of renouncing autonomy and self-sufficiency to the all-sufficient Creator, who himself rested as an example for us.

In Exodus 20, Moses delivers the Ten Commandments to the children of Israel. In verses 8-11, God spells out his rationale behind the institution of the Sabbath.

Remember the shabat, to keep it hold. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a shabat of YHWH your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days YHWH made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day and made it holy.

Saints gathered to celebrate shabat.

The shabat, here, is authorized by the memory that on the seventh day of creation, God rested from his work.  Cessation and rest are thus grounded in the very structure of creation as ordered and blessed by God. In this statute, rest becomes even more richly theological. Rest is tied to the work and nature of the Creator. A connection is established between shabat and Creation. The meaning of shabat is more than just “rest” or “relaxation,” but that which gives completeness, usually by bringing a series to an end. Therefore, as an end to the exodus, reflection on the shabat suggests building the tabernacle. This was the visible, disciplined expression of enjoying rest in communion with the Creator for the Israelite people.

As the concept of rest was developing throughout the Hebrew canon, the prophets recognized and preached it as an act that was definitive for their faith. Amos noted that shabat carried economic significance, as well.

Hear this, you who trample the needy

and do away with the poor of the land, saying,

“When will the New Moon be over

that we may sell grain,

and the Shabat be ended

that we may market wheat?”—

skimping the measure,

boosting the price

and cheating with dishonest scales,

buying the poor with silver

and the needy for a pair of sandals,

selling even the sweepings with the wheat. (8:4-6)

For the prophets, the practice of a regular, disciplined, visible cessation from production was “an act of resistance against having one’s life defied by one’s productivity” (also cf. Isaiah 56:3-7). Therefore, there was nothing strange or out of place with the conclusion that every seventh day God’s people were to renounce dominion over time, thereby renouncing autonomy, and recognize God’s dominion over time and thus over themselves. Keeping shabat  was an active acceptance of the sovereignty of God.

In the New Testament, the incarnate Maker of the Universe saw shabat as a blessing made for man. It was never meant to be a burden, but a blessing to be experienced He refused to allow his earthy life to be defined by the enormity of his production, but by his relationship with his heavenly Father. He took the blessing of shabat to a whole new level (cf. Matthew 12:1-12; Mark 2:23-27, 3:4, 6:2; Luke 4:16-31, 6:1-9, 13:14-16, 14:1-5; John 5:9-18, 7:22-23, 9:14-16).

Life is a consistent journey
to be lived corum deo.

For good reason, efforts are being made in the modern world to regain this sense of shabat. “In a consumer economy that is committed to endless growth and reducing everything to commodity, the competent can easily imagine that they are self-made, self-sufficient, and self-actualized, with no reference point beyond themselves.” Thus an effort that might be made to cease work for one day a week, must also be accompanied by an effort to curb consumption, the acknowledgement that life has not been handed over to us for our devouring. Just as rest is a gift, so God’s blessings are gifts. Like rest, they are meant to inspire us to worship, not idolatry. The mindset that feeds on society’s production and consumption says, “Without God, everything is possible.” But the intentional follower of the incarnate Maker, will rebel against the craze to get more and produce more. Life is not an endless pursuit of goods and accomplishments. It is a consistent journey to be lived corum deo – in the presence of God. Shabat provides a visible testimony that God is at the center of life. The one who consumes the most is not the most successful. He is just the fattest. The one who practices shabat in its fullest sense is the most successful. He is the one who communes with God and his people, and will experience great grace and provision.

   On Sunday, November 25th, the Grandmother Hall of Fame saw the passing of one of its foremost members. Louise Cole entered the unhindered presence of the Lord, and left us all missing her terribly.





   When I think of my grandma, many things come to mind. When she would wrap Christmas gifts, she would always hide the names of the recipients somewhere in the designs of the wrapping paper. My brother and I were the designated ones to find the names and distribute the gifts. Also on Christmas, she would always get me a new nutcracker (to add to my enromous collection). On New Year's day, we would always go to her house to watch college football and eat chili that she had prepared. It was at grandma's house that my brother and watched our first Saturday morning cartoons. It was at grandma's house that we first watched The Prestige and Miracle while eating a huge bowl of popcorn and drinking Diet Coke (a favorite of hers). I remember the time when she was about to tear off the head of the umpire who botched a call and made us lose our Little League District Final game. It took everything in my mom's persuasive power to calm her down. She was always our biggest fan. As my brother notes, there were only ever two people he could hear as he was playing, my dad and my gandma. I remember all the times she would take my brother and I to horse pulls in Northern Michigan. It was her goofy way of celebrating the fact that she could see us again after her winter in Florida.



   It was not subtle to anyone that she loved my brother an I, her only two grandchildren. As my grandpa told me today, "You and Benjamin are really the only reasons that grandma wanted to go on living at all. Otherwise, she was anxious to leave this world. She wanted to be with her precious Savior. She wanted to go 'home.'" That was another thing that was not subtle in her life; she was always anxious to meet Jesus face to face. In the songs she played, in the hymns she sung, in the words she spoke, in the letters she wrote us, she displayed an eagerness to be in perfect fellowship with the Lord. That legacy was passed on to us. When I think of her death, I am not overcome with grief. Yes, I do miss her a lot. But I am eternally happy for her. She is better off than all of us. She is experiencing the culmination of her salvation: glorification. It was an eternal joy when she was justified. There was rejoicing in the heavenly court. It was evident to the world to see her her sanctification unfold. But now, as I write, she can finally rest in the fulfillment and culmination of her salvation, the fact that she is completely freed from the presence of sin. Not only that, because her sin has been removed, and Christ's righteous record applies to her, she is granted complete and perfect access to the presence of God with out fear or shame. And in this, I am very happy for her.

   In the wake of her death, I am not angry at God for taking her from me. And I am not overwhelmed with my own finity, though it does come closer to home now. Instead, however, I yearn to leave a legacy of love and faithfulness only half as well as she did. I want to make every moment count. I want to live my purpose all the way to the end. And when I finish this race, I desire with everything in me to hear the Savior say, "Well done."

   P.S. Give Jesus a hug from me, Weezie.



A sermon I preached at First Baptist Church on 11-18-12