Throwback

This past semester, I've felt like an impostor. I stood in front of four classes and I felt exposed; I couldn't hide anymore: I was the teacher.
When I was younger, I was a performer (I danced and I sang), and I don't remember how or why, but I cocooned myself into this identity of shyness and of passiveness and of fear. Every part of me wishes to pinpoint the reason why I am the way I am now. But here I am, at the end of my first semester, feeling the rawness of disappointment, of relief, of expectation.
This wasn't part of my plan. God and I have wrestled with where He has placed me. He knows me- because He made me- He knows I want to hide.
And He laughs- I know He finds me humorous- because here I am with no place to blend in, to disappear, to go unnoticed. Being a black woman did not help either.
I stood in front of four classes and felt like an impostor. I am a writer (every time I say that, I cringe- it sounds so self-indulgent and egotistic), my background is in science and some standard had ingrained itself within me, claiming I'm still not enough.
But I had to stand. I had to stand in insecurity, in perceived lack, in frustration, in this struggle of who I am and who I thought I had to be. I had to stand because I gave my word and standing paid the bills.
I had to stand and fight the learned instinct to run. And I ran- because I am good at that- but I came back and stood.
Next year, I'll stand again because this is where He has me: here, now. I am here now.
Will you stand? Will you stand in this chatterbox of a world and speak what you see? Will you stand against your instinct to stay quiet and hidden and speak the truth the world desperately needs? Will you stand against the odds, against the majority, against yourself and usher in the change that can set the captives free? Will you stand? And if you ran, will you come back and stand in the here, in the now?
It's easy to convince yourself that you are an imposter, that you don't know anything, that you have nothing to contribute. SO EASY. I've been doing it for most of my life. But the pain of staying quiet is greater than the pain of stepping out.
Do not stay quiet. I need your voice. We all need your voice.
And it's ok if it's a little unconfident whisper. It's ok if you're still learning: you were never meant to arrive as a complete, unburdened package. You are a process. You're a universe, expanding and evolving. Honor that: there is no shame with growing.
"Shame off you."
Come back, come stand and please, come speak.

There's A Cost. Count It.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

Philippians 3:7

The personhood of Jesus is offensive if you think about it. Like truly offensive. I mean that's why nearly all the teachers and Pharisees plotted to kill Him. 

Jesus threatened their very livelihood with the Good News.

Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And He chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.

1 Corinthians 1:27

The cross to this day- two millennia later- still gets people defensive and up in arms. You can't add or subtract from what the cross did-what it represents for all time.

When you look at the cross, you realize that there's a cost in seeing the bloodied wood. There's a cost in seeing the offending tree on which Jesus hung. 

The cost hits you square in the face, and before you can even soothe the bruise of its truth that somehow pierced your heart, it asks you- it has the audacity to ask you- will you consider it? Will you count its cost in your life? Will you change your life in light of its cost?

Will you admit that you're in need of the Savior?

Will you admit that despite your best efforts all you can produce are filthy rags of righteousness?

Will you admit your desperate need of the Lord?

Will you admit that you really don't have the slightest clue as to how to run your own life?

Will you admit that the cross was for you?

Not many want to admit that. Even some Christians have trouble and stumble when dealing with the cross.

No one wants to admit that they do not have all the answers, that they're a highly functioning mess on their good days. THEIR GOOD DAYS!

No one wants to disclose their insecurities, their doubts, their- gasp- sins because I mean who wants to be vulnerable, to be honest, to be humble enough to accept a gift as great as the cross?

Because it's true. Everything- all that you've worked for, all those goals, all the things you've chased because the world taught you that they were valuable- it all has to be counted as a loss in order to gain the cross.

Everything, not just some thing(s), but all of it, all of you has to change in light of the cross.

Can you grasp its severity? Do you want to?

In Acts 9, Saul had every reason to be confident in life. There was a standard, and he met every one of its benchmarks.

• Circumcised ✔
• Israelite, Hebrew, from the tribe of Benjamin ✔✔ ✔
• Pharisee ✔✔
• Persecutor of the newfound church of Jesus Christ ✔✔✔✔✔
• Righteous and blameless by law ✔✔✔✔

Like many during his time, Saul knew the law intimately and based his life on its precepts. He was ruthless in his pursuit of the Church because he was convinced that these followers were dangerously led astray.

Would we do any less when Someone comes in and says that all we have built- the monuments, the empires- all the accolades we have collected were worthless?

Saul knew that this Church didn't reflect the God who gave Moses the law- the law that he upheld- so he took up the mantle to persecute those who followed the Way of Jesus.

And he was on the way to bind some in Damascus in order to ship them back to Jerusalem, when Jesus Himself intercepted the persistent Pharisee.

Jesus Himself, the One to which the law and the prophets point, interrupted Saul on his mission, and Saul had no idea who He was.

Remember, Saul spent his life earning one notch after another on his belt. He was high on his horse- on his way to arrest some Christians- thinking he was doing the Lord's work, thinking he knew God's heart on the matter when all of a sudden, in a flash of light, Saul meets God's Heart and realizes that he didn't know Him at all.

Jesus walked in and rebuked Saul for his actions, giving him more than a glimpse of what confidence in the flesh got him: utter, terrifying darkness.

The next three days, in that darkness, Saul saw clearly what living by society's standard and by the tradition of men got him: empires full of sandcastles and notoriety for towers of Babel. 

Within one breath, Jesus wrenched apart Saul's world and left him reeling in the wreckage caused by the cross.

And all that was left at the end were the same questions that the cross asks of us all.

Will we continue with business as usual?

Will we remain mute and blind to the hurting around us?

Will we settle in this comfort the world gives us or will we take His in?

Will we pretend that the worship, the services, the traditions done by our strength alone brings us closer to God?

Two thousand years ago, the cross told us- the "self-sufficient" beings- that we could never bridge the gap to God on our own. We need help: a Savior. There is no blueprint, no law, no tradition that we can take up on our own to fix ourselves.

We need help.

So in the shadow of the cross, there's a choice. With Jesus, there will always be a choice.

Will we turn our backs on the cross and toil in vain?

Or will we embrace the cross with all its implications?

Meditate 1.0

Sometimes, we can get stuck in a rut where our motions run through autopilot cycles.

In that limitless moment of the mundane we can forget: forget where we've been, where we are going, where we are.

We forget who we are and why we are in this moment in the first place.

And I'm asking for us to wake up. Don't let the ordinary, the run of the mill lull us asleep.

We need to be aware and awake especially now. The enemy walks around with the intent to devour us; he is on the hunt to destroy us. Imagine his glee to find us blind, deaf and mute to everything around us. What easy prey we have made ourselves to be.

Wake up and realize that we are made for more.

Wake up and remember that we are citizens of a kingdom not of this world.

Wake up and recognize the mandate that God placed inside us.

God made us His image-bearers. We are the world's conduits of God, direct staircases into His presence and vessels of His goodness.

When we pour out, Heaven becomes a reality here on earth.

Change won't come unless we do. The culture will not change unless we change.

Wake up and fix your eyes on heaven. Change won't come if we stare at what's around us; it only comes when we are connected to the original intent found in Jesus and walk, stumble- hey, if crawling is all that's manageable, then crawl- through it in our here and now.

Walk through heaven here on earth.

Heaven is not a far-off concept. Eternity is closer than the air we breathe in. God didn't create us to twiddle our fingers and dwindle our time. A God-sized calling is on our lives. We need to get active with the power that's already activated within us.

With God, we are able!

But first we have to turn our minds onto the things above. We have to meditate on the reality we want to usher in.

Because we cannot be a sign of something we aren't first immersed in.
Despite our best intentions, we cannot lead people where we have yet to enter.
We cannot reflect what we don't first behold.

Fortunately, God has given us a way to take in His glory: His Son, Jesus. If we lock our eyes on Him and think about all He has done and all He will do, then His courage, His goodness, His love will flow out of us.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

Philippians 4:8-9

Before we can do, we have to be and before we can be, we have to think.

Effective change happens within. It starts with us first and only then will we be agents of sustainable change.

We need to start with our thinking, start with what's going on between our ears. So meditate. Don't be passive with the thoughts and words running through your mind. Capture every thought and place it against His truth. Can it stand? Does it hold up? If not, throw it out and replace it with God's word.

And feast on His word. Fill yourself with the wisdom within the pages of the bible so that you can recognize when something is not right. God has equipped us with tools to empower us. Let's jump into the Word and see what He says.

The following is what happens when you're aware of what's being said. When you actively listen, His truth comes in and teaches you, leads you, reminds you and fills you up again.

♬Death could not hold You♬

But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. David said about Him:

I saw the Lord always before me.

Because He is at my right hand,

I will not be shaken.

Acts 2:24-25

It was impossible for death to keep its hold on Jesus. The grave was borrowed.

Underground, the enemy celebrated, thinking that he won. But Joseph's tomb was a loan.

And three days later, He rose from the dead, making a spectacle of those who triumphed in darkness.

Jesus is ALIVE!

♬The veil tore before You♬

While He died our death on the cross, miles away, inside the city's gates, inside the temple, the curtain that hung between us and the presence of the Holy of Holies tore from the top to the bottom.

When Jesus uttered "It is finished," those words, along with His blood, ushered in a new covenant, a new era. There was no longer a chasm between God and those who bore His image. No!

Jesus became the bridge that brought together man and God once again. Forever!

He did what we could never do after centuries of behavior control.

He made us home to the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. He made us clean; Jesus cleansed us and paved the way to God's throne.

...since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, His body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

Hebrews 10:19-22

♬You silenced the boast of sin and grave♬

“Where, O death, is your victory?

    Where, O death, is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:55-57

Sin separates us from the presence of God. The minute our predecessors in Eden took a bite of the forbidden fruit, we couldn't approach God. To have a relationship, to be connected with Him was difficult.

But the blood soaked cross swallowed the consequence of sin. Jesus took on our penalty and broke us free from everything that could ever separate us from heaven. Everything.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:37-39

♬The heavens are roaring

With praise of Your glory

For You are raised to life again♬

♬You have no rival

You have no equal

Now and forever God You reign♬

♬Yours is the kingdom

Yours is the glory

Yours is the name above all names♬

Acts 4:12 is one of my favorite verses. It encapsulates the Good News and its radical power. 

"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved."

The great divide is healed and sealed in the personhood of Jesus. Once we accept Christ into our hearts and confess with our lips that He is Savior and Lord, salvation is a guarantee: we can't be separated from God's presence any longer. Jesus has paid the price; He gave up His own life to redeem us from the curse of sin and death. And with His sacrifice, God has subjected everything in heaven and on (and under) earth under His authority. 

Nothing, not one circumstance, can uproot and steal His power.

There is not one district outside of His jurisdiction. 

When Jesus speaks peace, chaos has to leave.

When Jesus speaks light, darkness disappears.

When Jesus speaks healing, diseases have to flee.

"...at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Philippians 2:10-11

♬What a powerful name it is♬

This is the name you carry within. All of who He is, all of what He does rests inside of you.
The Holy Spirit that raised Christ from the dead finds it's home in you.
With Jesus, you can do anything.