Tag Archives: Purpose

Extravagant for good reason

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We don’t have to read deeply into the news of the week to find at least one article criticizing a Christian leader extravagant living, for spending too much on (fill in the blank.) Too much house. Too expensive a building. Too beautiful a lobby. Too expansive the property.

It’s not the journalists’ fault. We can make some unwise choices. No doubt. And when it come to money, we live in the land of skepticism.

But, extravagant for the right reasons, pays off.

In Matthew 26, a woman shows up during dinner. This woman cracks open an alabaster container of anointing perfume and pours it on Jesus’ feet. Those around, including the disciples, are appalled at the waste: “this decision should have gone through the right channels.” But, context can really help here. She literally poured out her dowry. She, essentially, relegated herself to serving Jesus as a single woman the rest of her life. The price of alone-ness, no children, no heritage, no safety net – an act of worship before the Cross and the Grave. The payoff, linked to the preaching of the Good News around the world for all time.

Three things to note in this story to help us judge wisely when tempted to judge others:
1) It was her call. She was the one who brought the gift. Broke the jar. Poured out the anointing oil. When we are tempted to judge Franklin Graham, Steve Furtick, or whoever next lands in the sites of a whistle-blower, our first thought should be “her call” or “his call.” Err on the side of grace and trust that things are right instead of suspicious. There may be a “bigger picture” issue. (i.e. Furtick invested royalties from his book sales on a home, Graham received long overdue retirement investments.) The investment: all that she had. The payoff: Jesus is anointed for his burial.

2) It was on Jesus. Being extravagant for a good purpose is a good thing. Some things we don’t skimp on. Cool toys in the nursery (what’s with the cardboard fake bricks!) New strings on the guitars. New batteries in the mic. One more word: double-ply.  I want the best we can afford to do the best work. It’s for Jesus. But, it’s also “on Jesus.” We’re going to make bad calls. Miss the mark. Choose unwisely in the heat of the action. And in retrospect, we will need grace. His grace and the grace of others. No excuses. Plenty of mercy. The cost: humility. The payoff: God’s grace is seen.

3) She prepared for the Ultimate Scandal to be told. Her choice. Her gift. But, his sacrifice. The scandal of the Cross, that God would leave the place of glory for a gory death. So the sinful, badly managed, neglected, mishandled life you and I hold onto so fretfully, could be forgiven, the books reconciled, the life changed, and linked up to the Good News. The investment: identifying our lives with the death of the Savior. The dividend: our lives take the back seat, the Gospel moves to the front because of the grace God has given us in Christ.

So, be extravagant. Make choices that take into account your free will, His generous hand, and the grace to forgive. And spend your life foolishly for the Good News.
Foolishly His,
Rick

Day One – Architect: Foundations, Spans, and Lanterns

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Mark 1 – “This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah…”

Of all the forms of art and kinds of artist, the one that gets to “play big” most often is the Architect. He may start with pen and charts (or CAD-CAM.) But, the medium of choice is often big…very Big! Space, acreage, height, square footage all call for a grand imagination and vision. No matter how large the vision is or how tall the building designed by the architect grows, one feature remains essential. The Foundation.

In 1418, the city of Florence, or more specific the guilds, commissioned through competition the design and building of what was to become the largest dome to ever top a basilica. The cathedral building itself had been rising slowly over more than a century at the site of a crumbling and much smaller 5th Century church. The foundation had been set 118 years previously.

Filippo Brunelleschi, a watchmaker and goldsmith, won the commission. He beat out a dozen other architect plans and set in motion the building of a structure that called for scaffolding, machines, and techniques never before invented.

No matter the project, the architect as artist works with the same basic elements: lines, angles, curves. Brunelleschi faced the enormous challenge of spanning 143 feet diameter with an octagonal dome that reached twenty-seven stories high.

But, building high wasn’t the problem; concrete walls can go higher. He needed to be able to go high and curve inward; the pressure straight down was complicated by the weight of 37,000 tons pushing outward.

He had to account for hoop stress. Like the pressure of two hands pushing an inflated balloon, each level he completed had to distribute the weight of the next level, or it would “balloon” outward. He needed all of the weight above to sit on a strong foundation.

Out of the Comfort Zone:

1 Try this for a fun application. Hand out decks of cards and have a competition to build the biggest “house of cards” using the most cards. Give awards for the tallest and the one with the most cards.

2 What have you built in your lifetime? What was the foundation like?

3. If you were to name one main thing in your personal or family life that needs a good foundation to support its weight, what would that be? What presses you in this area and causes “hoop stress?”

4. What kinds of elements make up your spiritual foundation? Is it deep? Is it deeper or wider? What reinforces it?

Keep building what no one else can – your extraordinary life of faith!

Day One – Mathematician and Faith

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Most people don’t place mathematics with the Creative Arts – mainly because of traumatic algebra tests or unmemorized theorems. But the classical studies planted arithmetic squarely in the midst of seven primary liberal arts. Medieval philosophers so valued numbers that they declared “arithmetic to be pure numbers, geometry to be numbers in space, music to be numbers in time, and astronomy to be numbers in space and time.”

Boethius, a Roman during the last throes of the Empire, popularized math as a coveted discipline through his writing while waiting on death row as a political prisoner in the 6th Century. Though all he had to work with was the cumbersome Latin letter/numbers, he showed the West the value of studying arithmetic for it’s on value. Math became more than a tool for counting things; it became an art that influenced all the other disciplines.

Math and Church don’t mix well. Numbers equal counting, and counting (nickels and noses, especially) gets in the way of real Christianity. Christ-followers don’t think of faith in terms of numbers. but Jesus certainly did. Some of his best promises were math equations.

Read Mark 4:8-9. He promises that, if we keep our soil (Jesus says this represents us and the texture of our lives) supple and yielding to His Word, it will multiply in our lives and into the lives of others around us. It’s math.

Now, read the whole story (from verses 1-9). My ears hear what I shouldn’t do – no rocks, no weeds, no shallowness. I get the shouldn’t’s.  In math terms, we should add soil where we are shallow, subtract the weeds that distract us, and divide the rocks from our good soil.

But the promise is multiplication. Every truth I let sink through the crusty surface impacts my life in Kingdom benefits thirty or more times.

Out of the Comfort Zone:

1)Plan a game night with study – one with math involved like dominoes or Uno. Discuss the questions below during the game.

2)What truth from this chapter is God trying to get you to trust in?

3)Where in your life will you begin to apply this truth right away?

4)Who will your faithfulness impact?

And let God bring math back to your faith.

Does this hurt?

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We avoid pain (no-brainer). We run from it unless there is a higher payoff – improved game, better abs, new baby in our arms, a bill paid off, a binge weekend of “Glee.”

My son, for his first dozen or so years, came to me and announced “Does this hurt?” Then he would pinch, punch, pull, twist, or otherwise separate tissue from tendon. It came in the form of a question: it was really a warning. Pain was imminent.

Next to inclusiveness and tolerance, pain avoidance is right up there as sacred. In fact, some preach that, if we experience pain, we must be out of God’s plan for our lives – if God’s plan is wonderful, how could pain be involved.

I remember when my kids were younger, that they would start down a road to pain and punishment. (Don’t get me wrong: they were good kids. But also living proof of humankind’s fallen-ness.)The first action received a warning, the second a sterner warning, and finally the pain that halted the path they’d taken. It almost seemed like they were asking for punishment (my dad’s two phrases – “Do you want a spanking?” “Sure, sign me up.” and “This will hurt you more than me.” “Uh, yeah.”)

Good pain comes at the right place and for the right reason. Maybe I ask for it (discipline) or maybe I don’t.

Have I ever seen a branch ask for a good pruning? A smart branch knows a good pruning will make it better and healthier. More fruit, less dead weight, more pleasure in the purpose of growing and living. Jesus prunes what he cares for. So, in the pain, trust his hand and his love.

Lord, prune me. I am good with the pain if it makes me more alive. I can take the lopping off of the dead weight I carry. Snip, saw, and drag it away so my heart, life and fruit can be yours and spilling over.

Not finished yet,
Rick

Come and get me, come and get me…

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I’m not sure it’s exactly a mathematical formula, but the closer we get to “old-ness” the deeper is our longing for eternity. Things that taste like heaven remind me that’s where I’m supposed to dine some day. Things that hint of eternity nudge me to think how unsatisfying it is “down here.” When God’s Kingdom flashes through the dark and touches me or someone I pray for, I’m drawn toward that brilliance, if just for a moment.

Susan and I watched “City Slicker 2” a few days ago. Setting aside all the vignettes for the stars (Lovitz’s impersonation of Rainman, Crystal’s conversation with the cow on the jogging path, etc.) the whole story is Billy Crystal’s consummate self-centeredness set against the total focus of Jack Palance’s character toward “getting Curly’s gold.” At one point, Palance’s hungry gaze looks over the wilderness and hears the gold calling, “come and get me.” It’s a frightening look he gives to the character: a man possessed by the big fever for gold.

I need an impassioned longing for real treasure! Not “Curly’s gold” but the stuff of heaven. And I need to accept that God passionately loves me. His love for me is totally full-time – no momentary flash of “I like Rick.” He loves me (and you, if you’ve chosen to believe how far He stretched to rescue you) with unrestrained passion.

Jesus was moving on in his mission with his followers, heading for death, looking toward the resurrection and the new way of relating to those He calls. He says to his loved ones on the week of his execution:

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.” (John 14:1-3)

So, if you are troubled by the trouble? Trust that God has you life in the safe cup of his hand. If you feel the wonder when His eternity flashed into our time-consumed existence? He has a place beyond time that fits you perfectly – it’s under construction just like you are. Do you have a longing for knowing Him more intimately? Trust me: your longing to be with Him is only a smattering compared to His longing to have you with Him always. He longs to “come and get you (and me.)”

Eternally for Him

Rick