Closer to Christ

Jesus walked his earthly life with direction and purpose. Every step led to his final steps, carrying his cross, and our sins to Calvary. And then, on Easter morning, he breathed again, he stood up from the cold stone and took his first steps out of the tomb. We watched him take his final steps to the cross for us. We celebrated his resurrection, his life, his first steps out of the grave! So now...

Together the witnesses shout to us, “Easter is real! The Lord’s gracious forgiveness of sins is real!” Jesus made that crystal clear when he sent Mary with a message for his “brothers.” Even the greeting was pure grace for those who had scattered like scared rabbits into the night outside Gethsemane only days before. There is the same pure grace for us too who sometimes get stuck in our Good Frida...

Together the witnesses shout to us, “Easter is real! The Lord’s gracious forgiveness of sins is real!” Jesus made that crystal clear when he sent Mary with a message for his “brothers.” Even the greeting was pure grace for those who had scattered like scared rabbits into the night outside Gethsemane only days before. There is the same pure grace for us too who sometimes get stuck in our Good Frida...

Tenebrae, which is a Latin word meaning "shadows," has been observed in the church of Jesus Christ since the fourth century. On this Good Friday we remember the death of Jesus and recall his seven last words on the cross. As we remember the last words, we extinguish the candles on the communion table, one by one. The gradual extinguishing of the candles is accompanied by prayers, hymns, choral ant...

Listen closely: “My time is near. I will observe the Passover with my disciples at your house” (Matthew 26:18). “My time is near.” The chosen time! The appointed time! The time our Lord had set from eternity itself was now at hand. The set time for all of our Savior’s final steps! To the upper room. To the garden. To Judas who betrayed him with a kiss. To the trials. To the scourgings. To the spit...

Jesus' grand entrance into Jerusalem paved the way for our Savior’s final steps to his cross. And that was always the goal, because saving us was his mission. Saving us was his purpose. Saving us is what he did when he bowed his head and died, when he dragged down into his grave the most-deadly infection to ever plague our world! A cross-generational pandemic with a 100 percent fatality rate: sin...

Jesus' grand entrance into Jerusalem paved the way for our Savior’s final steps to his cross. And that was always the goal, because saving us was his mission. Saving us was his purpose. Saving us is what he did when he bowed his head and died, when he dragged down into his grave the most-deadly infection to ever plague our world! A cross-generational pandemic with a 100 percent fatality rate: sin...

When Paul was known as Saul, he was a famous enemy of the church. His zeal for persecuting the church made his conversion all the more shocking, and his testimony even more powerful. And Paul could have used those facts to rationalize away his regrets. This is perhaps the most common response to regret that pop-psychology can give. “You learned from your mistakes. Your experiences made you who you...

Fiction only resonates with us when it reflects fact. Think of our fictional heroes. Do you know what so many of them have in common? Regrets. So many of them have something in their past, some failing, some loss, something that they wish they could change. But even with their superpowers, they can’t. Batman’s parents are dead. Spiderman, his uncle Ben. Ironman had a whole history of arms dealing....

As soon as we do something we regret, we want to hide it. Secret sins are a lie that began with the devil’s lie in the garden. As soon as Adam and Eve sinned they hid, they created a secret, something that “nobody knows.” What a silly lie! Nobody knows? No, everybody knows! Adam, Eve, God, the Devil—who else was there? And what good did hiding bring? Our hiding is no less silly but easier to ratio...

In this second week, it is necessary to make a distinction between healthy and unhealthy regret. Healthy regret is essential to repentance—what we would call contrition. The proper response to contrition is to immediately take it to the cross and leave it there. As the theme song says: “You were never meant to carry this beyond the cross.” But that is not what we usually do. We stay there in the p...

The best thing for us is to move forward, and the primary thing preventing that is our own arrogance. The belief: “If I could go back, I’d do it differently!” grossly overestimates our ability, power, wisdom and goodness. Is the problem really that you didn’t know it was a bad idea in the first place? Have you ever made the same mistake twice? Being convicted of our sinful arrogance allows us to l...

The best thing for us is to move forward, and the primary thing preventing that is our own arrogance. The belief: “If I could go back, I’d do it differently!” grossly overestimates our ability, power, wisdom and goodness. Is the problem really that you didn’t know it was a bad idea in the first place? Have you ever made the same mistake twice? Being convicted of our sinful arrogance allows us to l...

As we seek to bring everyone in our area of influence closer to Christ, it is good to evaluate our own situation. How close to Christ am I? What does being close to Christ really look like? To the outside world, the Pharisee looked close to God. He certainly thought he was, and you could see it in his posture. He stood tall with no regrets, but that was a sham. The reality was he was about as far...

As we seek to bring everyone in our area of influence closer to Christ, it is good to evaluate our own situation. How close to Christ am I? What does being close to Christ really look like?

“Acting out of love, to show mercy, to correct injustices, to set things right...is beautiful. Love should be motivation enough to do the right thing. And not 'love' as a fuzzy abstraction, but love as a gutsy, willful decision to seek the best for others. What the world really needs, I think you’ll agree, is not a group of people patting themselves on the back for being angry. We need people who...

“This gavel, the one I awarded myself—who knows why?—is really, really heavy. I can keep pronouncing everyone else guilty for the rest of my life, but I’m not sure why. I don’t want this anymore. Maybe you know what I mean. So let me ask you… Ain’t you tired?” ~Brant Hansen, Unoffendable, p. 61 Anger and rest are always at odds. You can’t have one without the other.

“This gavel, the one I awarded myself—who knows why?—is really, really heavy. I can keep pronouncing everyone else guilty for the rest of my life, but I’m not sure why. I don’t want this anymore. Maybe you know what I mean. So let me ask you… Ain’t you tired?” ~Brant Hansen, Unoffendable, p. 61 Anger and rest are always at odds. You can’t have one without the other.

“When I was learning to drive, my grandparents' neighbor gave me some advice: "Always assume every other driver is an idiot." What he meant was that you can't assume other drivers are going to do the right thing, but could there be a problem with launching out into the world assuming everyone's an idiot but me? Can we even do Jesus work at all in the world with that outlook? Is there a better way,...

“When I was learning to drive, my grandparents' neighbor gave me some advice: "Always assume every other driver is an idiot." What he meant was that you can't assume other drivers are going to do the right thing, but could there be a problem with launching out into the world assuming everyone's an idiot but me? Can we even do Jesus work at all in the world with that outlook? Is there a better way,...

This week we kick off a new series: "UNOFFENDABLE". It's inspired by Brant Hansen's excellent book by the same title, that challenges us to question the myth of "righteous anger" and learn to react to offenses with love, patience, and humility.