Stepping in to Who You Are

In 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul says, "And we with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." 


I want to be more like Jesus. When my face is unveiled I want people to see Jesus in me. He is transforming me into His likeness daily. As I listen to His voice, engage in His word and in His work I become more and more like Him. In a sense I am not becoming something I am not; Jesus is working in my life to pull back the veil to reveal who I really am. The veil is just the thing I use to cover up my own insecurity; my own doubt; my own weakness. The veil is the barrier I put up to myself and others to keep myself safe, or at least what I think of as safe. The veil is a thing of my own making. I know that God wants to do a work in my life to pull back the veil from my heart and thus reveal the face of Jesus.
Some questions to ponder: Are you stepping into who you are? What are you becoming? What will you look like when your face is unveiled?

Some Thoughts on Generosity

Be generous in well speaking; in speaking and thinking well of others. Be generous in giving. Giving produces abundance -- hoarding produces lack.
In order to be a generous person I must be rid of all my fear. Fear produces hoarding. I can become afraid I might not have what I need and so begin to hang on to what little I may have. Generosity comes from faith: Jesus provides all my needs. To be generous is to be free in giving... a life marked by abundance... bountiful.
Generosity is doing more than required. As humans we often try to find out the requirements so that we can minimally meet the requirements and nothing more. But to be generous is to go beyond the requirement. Think about this: God is generous, He saw our need and met the need by going above and beyond! He wants us to live in His abundance and so we, too must be generous.

Tilling the Soil of the Heart with Art

After reading the parable of the sower as told by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke I was puzzled by the soil. What was it that caused the soil to get the way it was? Jesus likened the soil to the human heart. Those who hear the word (the seed) with a "noble and good heart" are the ones who produce the 60 to 100 fold. Jesus simply did not say how the heart got noble and good... or how the other heart/soil conditions in the parable got the way they were. So, I asked the Lord in prayer: "Lord, how does the heart become ready to receive the seed of the Word?" He answered me today by reminding me of something I heard some time back. "Emotions are the road map to the heart." Then He went on to tell me one of the main ways that emotions are captured is through art. That's right, art. As an artist I hold in my hand the power to till the soil of the human heart or to make it hard; to prepare it for the seed of God's word or to cause it to be distracted by the thorns which are the cares of the world. May I as a follower of Jesus respect the power of art to help others deepen their relationship with God. My art is not just for me; my art is really His art. Lord, help me use the gift of art for your glory in the service of others.

The Trinity: a prayer

Yesterday morning I was meditating on the roles of the Godhead and the Lord gave me this prayer:
Holy Spirit lead me and guide me into all truth. Teach me about Jesus, give me understanding in my heart of what He has accomplished in me. Enable me to be a bold witness to a lost and hungry and dying world as you convict, comfort and encourage me.

Jesus, you are the friend who sticks closer than a brother. You were the exact representation of the Father on the earth. You came to show me the love of the Father by your sacrificial death on the cross. You live forever to intercede on my behalf; you are the advocate with the Father. When I see you, I see the Father. You give me access to the Father. You preach good news to my poor soul; give sight to my blind eyes and set my captive heart free. You are preparing a place for me in our Father's house

Father God, creator, source of all life, source of my life. You were the one waiting to embrace me, the prodigal, when I returned home from my riotous living. You were the one who looked for me from afar. Your love for me is so great that you gave the very best you had to assure to me and the whole world that your love is true. You are my provider; my healer, you hold me in your arms close to your chest that I may hear your very heartbeat. You are love itself.
I welcome you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit into my life.

 Amen

Hidden With Christ

I haven't written on my blog in awhile because I often think, what is the use? I mean, does anyone even care what I have to say? Perhaps this is some other way of saying I have just been lazy. In either case I am compelled to write today so here goes...

I recently read about a thing called the "Ecclesiastes experience". It looks something like this: "Nothing makes sense; nothing really works, everything seems pointless (like making yet another post on a blog)." This is a very real thing that we all come to every now and again in our lives. Dr. Larry Crabb says the result of this experience often divides people into two groups:
Group 1:"... become experts who end up teaching others how to live
Group 2: "Struggle through their worst nightmares, lose all confidence in themselves and emerge with a humility and openness to truth that draws honest people to them." These are the ones who come through brokenness without becoming cynical and bitter.
Henri Nouwen says that "God is most available to us in the weak and mystery shrouded areas of our lives." I like that. I have learned in my life (and I am still learning this) that I do not have all the answers. I do know that my life is hid with Christ in God. It is in that hidden place that I often run to and find the comforter of my soul even in times of darkness and weakness and mystery.

There is power in love. from Randy Caswell on Vimeo.
This is a sermon I preached at my church a couple of weeks ago. I filled in for my pastor while he and his family was away on vacation. 

Cleaning off the Vine

Is your vine full or empty? As a teacher I have observed that students often come with their vines full. It is difficult to grow fruit on an already full vine. Often, the vine must first be cleaned of all the wrong stuff in order to be filled with the right stuff. Jesus told his disciples: "you are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you." I think the illustration is apt. How is it that Christ's teaching "cleaned" off the vine? Wouldn't it make more sense to say that the word He spoke caused the vine to be full; to bear more fruit? I think it is more like Jesus, in a sense, cleaned off the vine of all the wrong stuff, all the stuff that was keeping them from recieving from God. Sometimes everything we thought we knew has to be erradicated in order to receive the truth. I must always ask myself: am I full of myself? am I full of my own ideas about things and how I think they should be? Often the answer comes echoing back that I just don't know. The Lord, in His infinite mercy comes to me and takes away all that is unnecessary; all that is precluding the growth of the kind of fruit that lasts. This can be a painful process. But it is good and always brings forth life.

Safety... that's what it's all about isn't it?

I love Francis Chan. He has a way of cutting right to the heart of our safe Christianity. Check out this video to see what I mean.

The Real Purpose of Christian Higher Education

The other day a student who I’ll call Frank, came to my class late for the umpteenth time. “I am sorry,” Frank said, “I just can’t get past the bad habit of not getting up in time.”
“What will you do when you get a job?” I asked. “Oh, I’m never going to do that at my job,” he replied.
Higher education has become a means to an end. It has lost its primary function and meaning. Now, if you ask most students why they are in college they will very quickly tell you that it is to get a good job; to live the American dream. And with that college education has become a hurtle students must get over in order to get to the real business of “making a living” so that they can become successful consumers. I feel that higher education, especially Christian higher education has a higher purpose than that. It is not simply a means to an end but is an appropriate end in itself. The goal of education is education. Perhaps I’m idealistic. I recently read in Proverbs that “to get knowledge is better than gold…” (Prov. 16:16). I think our students are getting it backwards. If you ask most of them they will say the gold (money, car, house, stuff…) is more important than education. For many of them the acquiring of knowledge is just a necessary evil that one must endure in order to obtain the gold.
Are we raising up a bunch of pagans? Jesus said it clearly: do not worry about your stuff, “… the pagans run after such things…” The world sends a strong message that everyone ought to pursue stuff; that we should get more knowledge so they can have money to purchase more stuff. We in Christian higher education ought to be teaching our students that knowledge is good for its own sake.  Teach students to seek first the Kingdom of God (where true wisdom and understanding come from), and the other things will be added to them as a bonus. In other words, I would like to see us teach them to reverse the order that the world gives them. Knowledge is primary, all the other stuff is secondary.
In some ways, I believe this higher education’s  fault. I mean the acquisition of a good career is, for students and parents a great marketing plan to get students into college. Aren’t we in Christian higher education,  joining in on the world system when we treat education like just another consumer product, and students and parents like consumers.
The Kingdom of God is made up of those who produce disciples, not simply consumers of the latest products. When knowledge, understanding and wisdom are pursued for their own sake perhaps our students can become powerful producers instead of consumers.

Where Do You Get Love?

We all have need for love. The Beatles said it well: "All you need is love..." Where do we get our love needs met? That is the deepest question we can ask ourselves. Often we look to another human being to fufill our love needs. The problem is that other human beings often run empty on love too. This is where many serious issues arise in relationships. We begin to run empty on love so we look to someone else to fill up the love that is missing from our lives. They, in turn discover a love void in their own heart... A vicious cycle ensues. We were not designed to have our deepest love needs fulfilled by another. We were designed by our creator with an emptiness that can only be filled with His love. Look at the first verses of Genesis. There was a void and God filled it with His light. It is His nature to fill the void.

What is your "first love?" I do not mean that high school crush that you thought would be the "one." I mean, what is the source of your love? Jesus told the church of Ephesus in Rev. 2 that they had left their "first love." In other words, they left the source of their love. What is the true source of our love? Where does real love come from? John, in his first letter says that "God is love." Think about it, God doesn't just love us, He is the very initiation of love. He IS love.

When we get our first love, our initial love fulfilled in God, we have our deepest need for love met. Then we are capable of giving love to others, but we are not giving them our own fleshly, idealistic, love. The love we then give has its source in Love itself: God. Jesus said it best: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." How can we give what we do not have? How long can we live our lives expecting to receive the love of another to meet our needs? The best relationships are the one's where both partners are giving.

To expect to have our deepest love need met in someone other than God, is not only frustrating and painful, it is sinful idolatry.

What do you live for?

Some of us live for the things we do. Some live for the things we own. And still others live for the things people say about us. We can see where this kind of living leads. When we live for what we do, the stuff we own or want to own; the things others say about us we end up with a life that is up and down. Sometimes when we are doing well or people are saying nice things about us we feel pretty good and we are up. Other times when we aren't doing so well; when others are saying bad things about us we are down. There must be a constant unchangable thing for which we live. Check out this video of Henri Nouwen as he speaks about recognizing the fact that we are the "beloved" of God. Knowing that we are the beloved of God is the constant; this is a central guiding principle from which we can live our lives no matter what we do or what we own or what people say about us.

I Believe...

We make our choices and those choices dictate where we end up... we cannot blame anyone for the results of our choices

We are continuously learning. Our minds are like sponges soaking up whatever information comes our way.

We have to be intentional about what we learn by choosing the books we read, the teachers we listen to, the shows we watch the internet sites we visit.

It is our choice as to how the things we learn transform us. Information has consequences that lead to transformation. We can be transformed for good or bad depending on the information we take in and what we choose to do with that information.

There are some choices we do not or did not make. Sometimes others make choices that affect our lives in adverse ways. However, we can choose how we will respond to their choice. We are not victims, we can still choose our response and become victors.

We can choose to go God's way... or not. God has a plan, we can get into it and be a part of it... or not. His ultimate plan will still take place weather we get involved... or not.

Are we looking through the wrong end of the binoculars?

Ever look at something through the wrong end of a set of binoculars? Everything looks smaller, more narrow. I think this is how we sometimes view the Bible. We try to narrow down the voice of God; we try to make it small so we can somehow contain it. I don't think this is how God intends his word to be read. I kind of see the Bible like a pair of binoculars, only I think we should look in the right lense. The bible can be a way to magnify God, magnify His creation. Mostly I think we end up only looking at the word through the word (yeah, you read that correctly I did repeat "word" twice). I beleive God designed the Bible to help us look at the world. Next time you become engaged in reading scripture try using it as a lense through which to view the world and people and God Himself. And, if you are really brave, try viewing yourself through the lense of God's word.

Spiritual Goal Setting

This was an older post... in fact it is one of my first posts. I decided to re-post it because it is in line with things I am still considering: namely, how can I be more intentional about growing and maturing in Christ? Sometimes I feel like I would like to change the whole world and everyone in it. However, there is only one person I can sufficiently change: me... Setting good, godly goals is one way to do that.

I was just looking through an old journal today and found an entry that talked about setting goals. I thought it was interesting for where I am in life now.

Here is the list of ways to set spiritual goals:
1. Spiritual Journey
Cultivate your inner life by practicing the spiritual disciplines.
2. Kingdom Vocation
How am I intentionally ordering my life for the purpose of advancing God's Kingdom?
3. Intellectual Disciplines
Read a book a month, at least
4. Relationships
Jesus' life revolved more around relationships rather than organizations; he simply enjoyed time with His Father and others
5. Creative Disciplines
Celebrate life creatively through the arts, hospitality, gardening
6. Physical disciplines
Illness is often the consequence of lifestyle choices: food choices, exercise or lack thereof
7. Use of time and money
Get out of debt
How can I free up more time and money for Kingdom work?

What Do You Want More Than Anything Else in the World?

Lord, I want to see your Spirit move in my life more than I want all my heartfelt dreams to come true.

I prayed that prayer in church during the evening service last night. I realize that I am going through midlife now. Most of the things I have dreamed about have fallen by the wayside. I have desired many things for my life. I wanted to be an artist, well, I kind of am -- but I always wanted to make my living by making art, not being a teacher. Then I wanted to be a preacher or in some kind of full time ministry. Most recently I wanted to be a farmer. Midlife has a way of causing us to re-evaluate our "plans." As a Christian I have to realize my "plans" are not necessarily God's plans.

This morning I read Proverbs chapter 18, "A man's spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear." (v. 11) This made me think about something else I prayed about (more than once, I might add): brokenness. Now, why would any rational human being pray for brokenness? We sing the song, Take My Life and somewhere in it the words "brokenness is what I long for..." come up. It sounds all nice and spiritual but it is often painful.

The fact of the matter is God cannot truly use us unless we are broken; unless we have completely surrendered our own agendas and dreams to Him. When we come to the place where we lay down our demands of God and say, "You are the Lord," then we can honestly say we are true worshipers of God.

Is there anything else you want more than for God's Spirit to move in your life? Is there any dream you have that you are not willing to lay down at the foot of the cross? Then you will never be truly useful to God and His Kingdom. Personally, I can think of nothing else worth giving my life to than to the Lord Jesus Christ. And I have to admit that He is the boss, I am only a follower.

Faith is Relational

Remember the time when you were a child and your dad held out his arms and told you to jump from a high place? You probably jumped without thinking about it. In that moment you were practicing faith.
Once during Jesus time on earth the people asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” (John chap. 6)
“The work God requires,” Jesus responded, “is to believe in the One he has sent.”
Wait a minute Jesus, that is just too simple. You mean, all I have to do to practice the work God wants me to do is believe?  Yep, that’s it.
Jesus, it seems often extrapolated complicated things down to one simple thing. However, when I look deeper into the notion of belief I encounter something not quite so simple for my comfortable, American sensibilities.
To believe means to be mentally persuaded of the truth of something. If I am mentally persuaded of the truth that a chair will hold my weight I will not hesitate to sit in it. When God asks me to believe in Christ, he is asking me to put all my weight on him. To believe in Christ is the distinguishing characteristic of the Christian. When others look at me, do they see someone who is putting his entire weight on Christ? Do they see me poised, at any moment, to jump into the arms of my Heavenly Father?
When the people asked Jesus what they must do to do the works of God, they were speaking of specific things. They were asking about what specific works they could do to be pleasing to God. We are all like this, aren’t we? We want specific rules and guidelines so we will not make any mistakes in the journey toward Christ likeness.  But Jesus doesn’t speak in specifics, he paints with a larger brush. “You want to please God?” Jesus asks, “then you must believe.” This requires a moment by moment relationship with God. Paul calls it “walking in the Spirit.” In fact when Jesus answered their question he didn’t respond by speaking of “works” (plural). This was the word they used. He simply called it “work” (singular). Interesting.
Are you looking for formulas? Faith is not a formula, faith is relational.
“Without faith it is impossible to please God, because he who comes to him must believe that he is and that he rewards those who diligently seek him.” (Heb. 11:6)