Perfectly Imperfect Together

(Psalms 100, 103, 107, 110, 145, 150) We never really adore Jesus until we arrive at the moment when we worship Him for who He is in Himself, apart from any consideration of the impact of His Divine Selfhood on our desires and welfare. It’s then that we are loving Jesus for Himself alone. Then we adore Him regardless of whether there’s any personal benefit or not. We adore Him because He’s God and...

(Job 1-42) God is capable of being in charge. He’s really quite good at it. We need to lay ourselves down and let God have control of every area of our lives and let His will be done through us. Wait on the Lord and let Him be God. When we catch just a glimpse of the almighty, all-powerful glory of God, we cannot help but stand in fear and awe of His Majesty. We can choose to humbly rest in the Lo...

(Proverbs 1:1-7; 3:1-12; 4:10-19) When we are living in the will of God, the path gets brighter and brighter, not darker and darker. God is able to keep us from stumbling if we’ll keep ourselves humble before Him. If we look around instead of up, we’ll end up on a detour God didn’t intend for us. It’s up to us to look up and choose Jesus every single day. His way is always worth it. He has our ver...

The sun sets for us in this temporary world, but Jesus brings us the sunrise into eternity with Him. He gives us life now and forever. The light of Jesus shoots into the darkness and guides us out of the path of darkness and into life. The very Spirit of God comes to live in us and He renews our hearts. The grave is not the end, it’s only the beginning. That’s the eternal living hope we have in Je...

Jesus is leading us to a glorious eternity if we are willing to trust Him and follow His lead, and His will. We don’t know all things, but God sent His Son so we can know the One who does know all things personally and intimately. It's up to us to surrender all and give Him every last "yes" under the sun.

If we are willing to surrender all to God's will, He will lead our steps. He will guide us to our next best step, and He will carry us through the difficult and unfair times and seasons life brings. He will comfort us, strengthen us, and pour out His peace and mercies for us. He is ever-present and with us in every step. It’s up to us to surrender all control and trust Him in the seasons we ar...

The question Solomon leaves us with in this chapter is, will we listen? Will we quiet our lives, and unplug our ears from the loud noises the world offers us? Will we allow the hope of our Savior, Jesus Christ, to enter into our difficulties and speak into them? Will we entrust ourselves to His mighty hands?

If we only look at life under the sun, we are left with uncertainty, randomness, and limited knowledge. We are stuck. When you look beyond the sun and see Jesus, you can lean into the future knowing that the future is secure in His mighty hands. Through Jesus, we have true and living hope.

God took the worst day in human history and made it the means of our redemption because the one-in-a-quadrillion Man showed up. Jesus is the Ladder past the frustrations of a fallen world into union with God and His presence. Jesus is true Wisdom. He is our Hope. Jesus pushes us to reach to Him - the one and only true source of Life that lasts.

We may not know what is coming next, but God does. He has been in every tomorrow. He sees, He hears, He knows. God gives us enough information to encourage us right when we need it most, but He doesn’t cater to selfish or idle curiosity. Who we choose to serve and surrender to here will determine our eternity.

Oppression ceases in the Name of Jesus, competition is no longer needed with Jesus, and isolation doesn't exist in Jesus. In Jesus, we finally have a love that won't ever and could never hurt us. The love of Jesus heals and makes us whole in Him. Jesus invites each and every one of us to come to Him, come near to Him, and receive His offer of eternal glory.

To find value in life, we need to focus on what truly matters. We need to stay laser locked on Jesus and not get sucked into the "rat race" of life in this temporary world. We need to know our value and worth in Jesus and follow His lead and wisdom every step of the way.

We can choose to look up and give thanks to the Lord in the middle of the hard and mundane as much as we give thanks for the laughter and dancing. We can choose to focus on eternity with our Savior and run to the feet of the One who runs it all. We are called to live, breathe, and have our being under the sun according to God’s will with a “beyond the sun” perspective.

Our ultimate satisfaction in life comes in the ultimate One who is not far from us. He came for us. He will take our work and our love and our relationships and He will anchor them into eternity. Our lives are filled to the brim with meaning when they are anchored to the One who is beyond the sun - when we are anchored tightly to the Son.

For the Christ follower, life is an open door - not a closed circle. There are daily experiences of new blessings from the Lord. We can't explain everything under the sun, but life isn't meant to be built on explanations. Life is built on God's promises. If we open God's Word - God's love letters sent to us straight from heaven - we will see thousands of promises from God that...

(1 Kings 3) Jesus is pleased when we want more of Him, and He will answer. He wants to bless us generously with His wisdom, His presence, and His love. He loves us. He is for us. He wants to be near us. And He wants good things for us. He created us for His victory. The victory Jesus died for us to receive. It’s up to us to surrender all, and trust Him in every step every single day. It’s up to us...

(2 Samuel 11&12; Psalm 51) Like David, we need to choose to stop trying to hide and name the “thing” we are struggling with before the Lord. He loves us and wants to help us. God’s grace gives us the power to run from sin and the restoration we need when we blow it. We need to bring whatever it is we are struggling with from darkness to light before the Lord, confess it before Him, and let Him...

(2 Samuel 7) God sees the future, He’s been in every tomorrow. His ways are higher than ours, and when we plan, God directs and re-directs. If we are questioning a plan or a change of plans, ask the Lord for confirmation. He will give His direction when we pause long enough to ask, and wait for His reply and direction.

(1 Samuel 16 & 17) The Lord wants to use our lives to magnify His great Name to all the nations of the earth. The Lord is with us and the victory belongs to the Lord. When you choose to repent and surrender your heart and life to Jesus as Lord of all, you are anointed with the power of His Holy Spirit. Through His power, we are able to overcome the giants we face. We need to shut off the world...

(1 Samuel 8-10) The Lord left the perfect heavens and came in human form to our broken sinful world for us. He died a crushing, torturous death for us, offering us His life instead. We can trust that He not only wants good things for us, but that He will go all out for us if we are simply willing to trust Him, trust His timing, and trust His eternal goodness.

(1 Samuel 1-3) We are created in the image of God and are created to bear His glory to the world around us. We benefit greatly and eternally from God’s glory and His redemption plan for us, but we are not the focus or meant to be. We fall short of His glory and we desperately need Jesus and His glory. The spotlight belongs on God, not us. 

(Ruth 1-4) Our assurance is not in our feelings or circumstances or anything of this upside down world that is bent against God. Our assurance is in our Redeemer, our Savior, and His Word. Only the grace of our loving Father can save us. It’s only through Jesus we are saved and we all need Jesus desperately.

(Judges 13-16) God can handle our humanity and our messes. It’s never too late to cry out to God. God never stopped loving Samson and He will never stop loving any of us. He just wants us to faithfully trust Him, and keep running forward pursuing Him and His holiness in radical faith while pointing all those around us to Him too.

(Judges 6-8) Courage comes from faith. Courage is fear saturated in prayer as we move forward wholeheartedly trusting the Lord with all our guts. The way we grow in faith and courage is to hear God's Word, believe His promises, and obey what He tells us to do.

(Judges 4 & 5) We are called and commissioned to share Jesus with His authority and victorious power to give people the opportunity to be free from the bondages of sin and hell. The world around us may try to tell us we shouldn't, couldn't, or wouldn't. We need to hear and listen to God's voice and hush all the other noise. God wants every soul on earth to have the opportunity...