I love visiting people in their homes. There is something so natural about human beings when they are home and in their natural setting. Their barriers are down, their boundaries are not as much of an issue, and their self-perceptions are not as heightened because they don't really have to impress anyone.

When we are home, we are not quite as concerned with being that cool. Almost cool is cool enough. I love that! There is something so pure and free about being home and almost cool.
In John 15:9, Jesus said,

"Just as the Father has love Me, I have loved you; abide in my love." 

In other words, You should feel at home in my love. And like when you are at home and your barriers go down, the more you live in the Gospel, the more you will find safety and security. The more you make yourself at home in God's love, the less important it becomes to be cool and important.

Realizing this has taken so much pressure off of me. I don't have to try so hard to fit in. I don't have to work so hard at polishing my image. I don't have to kill myself to prove that I matter. Because at the end of the day, I am always home in the love of God and that is what really matters.

The truth is that I have never really been cool. I have always just been "almost cool." And for some reason that always bothered me. I guess it had to do with the fact that I have always looked to the opinions of others to guide me into acceptance. But all that pressure is gone now. When I am finding my approval and acceptance in God, the opinions of others don't even compare! My adequacy is from Him alone (2 Cor. 3:5)!

As a result, I have committed to two things:

1. I will find my home and my security in the love of God.
2. I will be content to be almost cool.

Almost cool is now cool enough for me, and I pray that it is cool enough for you too.

This morning, Psalm 46 was read over me, and it was exactly what I needed to hear.

Recent events have been sort of difficult for my wife and I. And I often find my heart filled with heaviness and anxiety and confusion. The things that I thought were pretty certain have turned out to be rather uncertain and shaky.

So when the eternal, unchanging words of God found in Psalm 46 washed over me this morning, it hit me hard. It didn't change anything, but it changed everything, if you know what I mean.

It says in the first 3 verses,

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change, and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride." (NASB)

It reminded me that there are only two things that are constant in this life: God and trouble. And when God is our constant, there is no amount of trouble that can shake us.

I have a lot of mountains in my life - things that I see as secure and constant. And I have lots of oceans in my life, too - things that hold me up and carry me along. And I tend to rely on these a lot...like humans do. But the reality is that there is nothing as secure and constant as my God. When my mountains begin to tremble and my oceans begin to roar and rage, I will not be shaken because God is my refuge.

So today, everything changed...even though nothing changed. My mountains and my oceans are moved, but my God is not. And because of that I have a new perspective. I don't see the storm and the clouds anymore. I see the extremely great potential for God to show how great he really is. Because when I actually live out Psalm 46:10, I realize that God is glorified in a greater way when I am still and let him do his thing.

"Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." (NASB)

I was up late last night thinking about what it really means for me to follow Jesus and why it even matters. I was processing what the point of it all even is and how I could articulate this to someone who doesn't quite get the point of following Jesus. And though I feel like it's kind of weird for me to share this simplified story on a blog post, but I think it is important to be able to have a version of your own story that you have processed and then condensed so you can genuinely talk about it anywhere.

This is my story...in a very, very small nutshell:

I was 3 years old when I became a follower of Jesus. So my life before Jesus consisted of learning to walk, run, and ski. However, I distinctly remember the exact time and place when and where I put my trust in Jesus. I was in the hallway between my bedroom and the kitchen. I was there on the ground talking with my dad about Jesus and salvation and I decided right then that this was a life I wanted.

Even though, I was young when I became a follower in Jesus, that simple decision has had a profound impact on my life. I can’t claim that I was messed up before Jesus began to rule my life and then I changed because I didn’t have a ton of will power before 3 years old, and because I have been messed up pretty much my entire life - even after becoming a follower of Jesus. 

But the thing that has profoundly impacted my life is the reality of grace in every space of my life. I can never outrun the grace of God and I can never out-sin the grace of God, no matter how many times I think I have. Knowing that there is a God with a love so vast and inclusive as to love me to the point of death has captured my fascination and continually draws me to Jesus. 

Even though it is taking me a long time and the process is very messy, I am slowly becoming more like Jesus and I wouldn’t trade this life for an easier one. I can be real with a God who will never give up on me. I can have the hope of glory. And I can walk in confidence, knowing that my massive list of imperfections has already been forgiven and forgotten. And now I can know the God of the entire Universe...on a personal level! And this makes it worth it all.

The verses that have left the biggest mark on my life are Romans 5:8...

"God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!"

... and 2 Corinthians 3:5...

"Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God!"

What's your story?

Freedom.

We all want freedom. We want to be unchained, unbound, and unharnessed.

But freedom isn't what we often think it is. And it doesn't come from where we often think it comes from.

This is the definition of a paradox:

A statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.

Often the concept of freedom can be a paradox. We think it seems obvious to understand, but the lived reality is actually the opposite of what we first thought. It is counter-intuitive.

Here are 3 paradoxes of freedom:

Paradox #1 - Freedom does not mean doing whatever you want. The thing we usually hear in our culture is that freedom means doing whatever you want to do. It means living it up without any restrictions. It means not listening to anybody tell you what to do. It means creating your own destiny. But this couldn't be further from the truth.

Imagine a sleek, new train moving down the tracks at top speed. It is exhilarating to watch. But if that train got it in its train mind (it that were possible) that it wanted to be like the tractors in the nearby field, and jumped the tracks to turn up the sod in the field, what would happen? It would get stuck. Is that train free, even though it did exactly what it wanted to do? No. Why? It wasn't made to go on the land. It was made to move down the tracks at top speeds.

Freedom does not mean doing whatever you want to do; it means doing what you were made to do. You will never find freedom from a wild, limitless pursuit of all kinds of pleasure. You will only end up dissatisfied, empty, and still wanting more. You will only ever find freedom when you begin to live your God-defined calling and when you find satisfaction from a personal relationship with Jesus. That is what you were made to do; that is what will give you true freedom.

Paradox #2 - You can be a slave to your misconception of freedom. The pursuit of greater and never-ending pleasure is capable of sucking you in and enslaving you. As stated above, you cannot find freedom from a wild, limitless pursuit of all kinds of pleasure. Why? It leaves you dissatisfied, empty, and still wanting more. Why? Because pleasure wasn't created to fill the God-sized void in your heart. It was merely meant to point you to an all-loving and good Creator.

Only Jesus can fill that void in your heart. And the more you run in circles, trying to find that perfect experience to set you free and the more you throw the shackles off and try to find your freedom on your own, the more you will become caught up in the pursuit of pleasure. When you look back, you will realize that you were sucked in and that you were indeed, enslaved. How can I be so confident? I have been there. I was a slave to my pursuit of the ever-elusive experience of freedom...until I got to know Jesus.

Paradox #3 - Our freedom isn't free. Much like the freedom enjoyed in the USA was not just handed over to us but earned through great sacrifice, our personal freedom was not free and isn't held onto easily. Jesus gave up everything to purchase our freedom for us (cf. Gal. 3:13, Col 1:14, 1 Tim. 2:6).

I think we often take this concept of freedom very lightly. After all, you shouldn't have to worry about anything when you're free, right? Not really... There is an enemy who hates us and wants to screw us over as much as he possibly can while he still exists. And there is no end to which he won't go to try to ruin this relationship we have with the Creator. It was bought with a great price, and sometimes it requires a great effort on our part to stay close to our Creator.

"Keep on working to complete your salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God working in you to help you to want to do - and to be able to do - what pleases him." Philippians 2:12-13

I was recently reading in John 1 about the Word that became flesh (Jesus). And John said something in beginning of the chapter that I haven't been able to get out of my head since. He said in John 1:17,

"For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ."

A slave only knows the Law. He only hears the voice of the Law - telling him he either succeeded or failed. He only feels the affirmation of the Law - what the Law keepers defined to be good or bad. It is slavery to be defined by the Law and the Law keepers - even if you are doing a good job!

But the free person knows something greater than the Law. The free person, knows Grace and Truth. The free person lives in Grace and Truth. The free person finds his affirmation in the unchanging Truth and lives with an unreasonable Grace. The free person might know the Law, but chooses to be defined by a reality that is far superior - a relationship with Jesus - the personification of Grace and Truth.

This sets him free.

Jesus sets him free.

For those of you struggling to be free, realize that your freedom comes from Jesus. You can't just fight the darkness around you. It doesn't work that way. You need to turn the light on. You need to turn to Jesus.

And in your journey of freedom, I would love to be an encouragement to you as much as I can! So drop me an email, or leave a comment below. I would love to get to know you and hear your story. Until then, God bless!

Recently, in our youth ministry, we went through a short series about knowing who we are and how God sees us called Identity Crisis. And even though it seems like such an obvious thing - knowing who we are - we often lose sight of our true identities in the plethora of images of everything our culture expects of us. We are called to love God and change the world, but everything in our culture says we should make our lives comfortable - all about ourselves. And the moment we begin pursuing what culture gives us instead of pursuing what God has called us to, we have settled for something far less than greatness.

But the enemy wants anything for us than to attain to what God has for us. He wants mediocrity for us. Because of this, he has waged war on us. And his target is our identity in Christ. If we can be knocked away from a healthy self-identity, then he can tempt us to do just about anything that will steal glory away from our God with relative ease. And the crazy thing is that we need to know who we are in Christ to fight against this. In order to remain close to God, we need to be confident in Him.

See, we will always fight FROM our identity. The way we perceive ourselves in this world will greatly affect how we pursue changing this world. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but we are always in a fight. The question is just what we are fighting for. Are we fighting for things that matter or things that don’t? We will always avoid the fights that matter until we are confident of the One who fights for us. And the way that we perceive God is really important because it changes how we see ourselves.

Big God --> Strong, Confident Me.

Puny God --> Weak, Scared Me.

We see this truth illustrated very beautifully in 1 Samuel 17. When David walked onto the battlefield to fight with Goliath, do you think he was worrying about how weak he was? No. He was confident in how strong his God is. And that made him realize that he was invincible! Did you catch that? The way that he perceived his God was the difference between slavery to Goliath and victory for Israel.

The way that we perceive our God, and how He lives and works in us is the difference between agitated losing and abundant living. Agitated losing. Abundant living. This is what hangs in the balance.

So we must know how God sees us. For those of us who follow Jesus, this is how God sees us:

John 1:12 - We are children of God!
Ephesians 1:5 - We are adopted children who bring him pleasure!
Romans 15:7 - We are accepted by Jesus!
Colossians 2:9-10 - We have the fulness of Christ!
1 Corinthians 6:17 - We are one with the Lord in Spirit!
Romans 6:6 - We are no longer slaves to sin!
Genesis 1:27 - We have been created in God’s image!
1 Corinthians 12:27 - We are a part of the body of Christ - the Church!
1 Peter 2:9 - We are a chosen people! We are a royal priesthood! We are a holy nation! We belong to God! We are no longer in darkness!
Galatians 3:27-28 - We are no longer identified in the way everyone else identifies us!
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 - We are a temple of the Holy Spirit! We have been purchased at the highest price!
Colossians 3:1-3 - Our identities are hidden with Jesus so much so that God sees us the same way he sees Jesus...as a perfect child whom he adores!

The way we perceive ourselves in this world will greatly affect how we pursue changing this world. And in order to change our world, we need continually fight to protect our identity in Christ.

My prayer for you is that you know Jesus, you know who you are, and that FROM your identity, you will be able to change your world for God's glory!