Devotions with Lecrae: Used to Do it Too

The more I listen to Lecrae (and a few other Christian rappers, including Trip Lee) I'm struck by the theology and the message in their music.  Christian rap has come a long way in the last few years. Not too long ago it was really poor, but these guys that are big now not only have great messages, their beats and lyrical skills are great too.

This morning I was thinking about the message in Lecrae's song "Used To Do it Too" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tjuuy9deEc).  A few lines in parts of the song specifically caught my ear.

The intro to the song goes like this:

Some folks think they mistakes, gonna keep them out the gates (Heaven). It ain't about what YOU do, it's about what HE did. 

So from the get go Lecrae has us focusing on what is important, Jesus sacrifice to save us from our sins; forgiveness.

The chorus of the song goes like this:

I used to do it too, I used to do it too, I used to do it, used to do it, used to do it too. I'm changed, now I'm something different. I'm changed, I love the way I'm living. I'm changed, saved me from my own sin. I'm changed, I learned how to live again.  

Later on he references Colossians 2 directly, and seems to be rapping straight out of Romans 8. Both are passages dealing with freedom from sin, freedom from the rule of the flesh, and being free in the Spirit. One can also find reference to Romans 6, where Paul says we must die to sin and become slaves to righteousness.

In the later verses of the song, Lecrae talks about his sin, saying: "you name it, I promise I done it all, so busy doin' me, I ain't care at all," which describes all of our lives in sin. We're selfish, sinful beings, we sin over and over.  Lecrae ends that verse with this line, which is one of my favorites:

But I ain't fix myself, ain't turn myself around. I gave it up and told the Lord that He can have it now

What a powerful statement of what we do in living for Christ. We commit to giving over our sin and becoming slaves to righteousness. We die, and are made new.  Praise the Lord

I love listening to Lecrae's music. I can enjoy it for it's musical quality, but it also reminds me constantly of the joys of being a Christ-follow, and the commitment that entails.

Devotions with Lecrae: Don't Waste Your Life

This morning for devotions I was reading 1 Corinthians 15, specifically verses 12-34. This passage, especially the first few verses, is one of my favorites, and perhaps one of the most fundamental in the New Testament. In verses 12- 14, Paul writes:

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

After devotions, I turned on some music as I made breakfast and got ready for church.  The first song to come on was Lecrae's "Don't Waste Your Life", which you can listen to at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbQyQavqqMI

In the first verse Lecrae says: 

Paul said if Christ ain't resurrect then we wasted our lives       Well that implies that our life's built around Jesus being alive Everyday I'm trying to show the world why Christ is more than everything you'll ever try 

Basically he sums up what Paul says in 1 Corinthians, if there is no resurrection, then our preaching and our faith is utterly useless. Paul goes on later to say that if Christ has not been raised, our faith is futile, we are still in our sins. Then he builds to say that Christ has indeed been raised and we are made alive in him.

It was for me a great reminder of why we live and what we live for. Nothing can compare to the love of Christ, who died, and was resurrected for our sins. We often talk about Christ's sacrifice of dying on the cross for us, but at least for me, it's far less often that I celebrate his resurrection, which is the foundation of our faith. 

Return...for I am merciful

In my daily scripture reading the other day, as I work through the Bible in a year with the rest of Madison Square Church, I was reading in the book of Jeremiah. One thing struck me as I read this; we are so like Israel (or at least I know I am). Reading through the Old Testament I've read countless stories of Israel's unfaithfulness. God always provides for Israel, and time and again Israel turns their back on God. He brings them out of Egypt and they make an idol. He brings them to the Promised Land and they disobey, taking the idols of others. The first part of Jeremiah is almost a cry from God saying "you keep turning away from me...why?"
It strikes me that this is exactly what we do all the time. In spiritual moments in Church we promise to give our all to God. We get all fired up and "committed." Then we go home and quickly forget all that passion we only recently felt. God brings us to Him, we turn our backs.
But here comes the good part. In Jeremiah 3, God says "Return, faithless Israel, I will frown on you no longer, for I am merciful..." He continues on (speaking through Jeremiah) to call Israel back to Him over and over, if only they would turn away from their unfaithfulness and idolatry.
Thankfully, that is what God has done with us. He has seen our sin, and yet He provides for us, leading us, guiding us, protecting us. God saw our sin, and sent His SON to die on the cross for our sins.
Only a truly loving God would put up with all the sin and faithlessness we live in. Thank God that our God is a loving God.

Amen.

Gratitude and Willingness

Today in Church out preacher  preached on Romans 12:9-21.  The passage begins with "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good."  It goes on to list a number of things that a mature Christian should do in the way they live their life. In the message, our preacher focused on verse 16, which says: "Live in harmony with one another.  Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited."  The phrase "be willing to associate with people of low position" is also translated "be willing to do menial work," which is what our preacher focused on this morning.

Sincere love means being willing to do anything for someone.  If someone tells us that they would be willing to do literally anything for us, of course we should be very thankful, we would show great gratitude towards them.  While people are selfish and sinful and probably at some point would fall short of literally doing ANYTHING for us, Jesus came to earth and did exactly that.  He suffered and died in order to save us from our sins.  Nobody else in the history of the world has shown the love that Jesus showed us, giving not just "anything," but EVERYTHING for us.  John 15:13 says: "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

If God loves us THAT much, and sacrificed THAT much, then clearly our gratitude should be displayed in our everyday life.  We should live each an every second of our life as an act of gratitude towards our Lord.  One point that our preacher made was that gratitude leads to willingness.  If we show gratitude for what God has done for us, then we will not be proud and we will "be willing to do menial work" (Romans 12:16).  If God calls us to do something, we should do it. Sometimes the things that God calls us to are not things that bring us glory, or wealth, or fame.  The things God asks us to do aren't always easy, in fact often they are not easy.  Think of missionaries who leave their families, friends and the comforts of home behind to go out and spread God's word around the world, often in places where living conditions are not exactly comfortable.  But it's not about us.  This life is about giving God the glory and living to serve Him.  To show our gratitude, we must respond to God's call with an emphatic "YES!"

It's one of the things I pray every day, that I would hear God's call and have the courage to follow, wherever it may lead.

Commas (,) and Periods (.) and Easter Sunday

Yesterday in Church our pastor preached on the resurrection.  That seems obvious, as it was Easter Sunday, except for the fact that the main scripture for the sermon was the resurrection of Lazarus, not that of Jesus. He focused most of his sermon on John 11, where Lazarus gets sick, yet Jesus does not go to him until after he has died, and Jesus resurrects him four days after Lazarus has died.

Our pastor made a few points that I want to touch on before getting to my main point. At one point he highlighted when Jesus says "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe."  On this verse our pastor brought up the fact that Jesus had done healings before, and that if Jesus went and healed Lazarus to prevent his death, there would always be a few people who would say "he wasn't really that sick" or "it was the doctor who saved him."  However, once Lazarus was dead, nobody could deny that it was an outright miracle performed by Jesus that brought Lazarus back from the dead.  He also said something else that I found interesting.  Our pastor added that maybe there are times when the situation doesn't call for a miracle. Perhaps Lazarus' being sick didn't call for a miracle, but his having died did.  He made the point that we want and expect God to do miracles in our lives, but we don't want to be in the situation that requires a miracle. Interesting point.

Our pastor also highlighted Martha's faith in the story.  In John 21:11, Martha says "Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask." What incredible faith! Not only did she have faith that Jesus could have healed Lazarus had he come before Lazarus died, but she fully trusted that even after Lazarus' death, Jesus could ask God to resurrect him, and it would be done.  If only we could all live with that kind of faith.

I think what impacted me the most however was not something from scripture, but rather a point about the overall story that out pastor made.  In relation to this story, our pastor referenced a friend of his who once said "don't put commas where God puts periods, and don't put periods where God puts commas."  I particularly liked that last part, as it is incredibly applicable to this story and to our lives as Christians. In John 11 it would have been so easy to put a period after Lazarus' death. Lazarus dies, end of story.  As humans we'd tend to do that, but God put a comma there instead.  While we might expect the story to end there, God wasn't done, and he showed his incredible power again in resurrecting Lazarus from the dead.

I think this point is particularly applicable in our everyday life. We can't see what God has in store for us, and we don't know what God is doing, whether it be in the future or even how He is working in things that we are currently experiencing.  It's so easy for us to experience something and put a period after it. End of story.  I think that quite often we think something is over, and God is still working.  Too often God does something in our lives and we say "that was God working, thank you," and assume that the work is done and it's time to move to the next thing. However, God may still be working in that situation.  Even when we can't see it, God is always working.  When we think God is done, He may be just getting started.

So when something isn't going well, or doesn't appear to have worked out the way we'd like, let's remember that God works in mysterious ways, and we often don't understand or even realize how God has been working until long after He's done His work.  I think if we can all remember that God is always working and that we need to actively look for how He is doing that, we might just see things we didn't expect to see.

Let's leave the punctuation to God.

Living Our Thanksgiving

This morning in Church our pastor gave a sermon on Matthew 26. He selected a few sections to focus on in following with his recent sermon theme of "All In."  He spoke of the woman anointing Jesus' head with expensive perfume, saying she was "All In." He spoke of Judas' betrayal of Jesus for a 30 pieces of silver, saying he was clearly not "All In." He spoke of how we should be "All In" in our lives.  


The key image that he presented was the contrast of the Cup of Wrath and the Cup of Thanksgiving. In Isaiah 51, the prophet speaks of the Cup of the Lord's Wrath, which Israel has drunk in its sin. 


Rise up, Jerusalem,
you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD
   the cup of his wrath,
you who have drained to its dregs
   the goblet that makes people stagger. (Isaiah 51:17)


He contrasted that image with the Cup of Thanksgiving in Matthew 26:  "Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." The Cup of Thanksgiving, as the symbol of the blood of the covenant, represents our salvation from sin through Christ's sacrifice on the cross.   This is prophesied in Isaiah 51:22, where it says 


This is what your Sovereign LORD says,
   your God, who defends his people:
“See, I have taken out of your hand
   the cup that made you stagger;
from that cup, the goblet of my wrath,
   you will never drink again.  (Isaiah 51:22)


By offering Himself on the cross for our sins, Jesus bears the Cup of Wrath for us, so that we may never have to drink from that Cup again.  Rather, we drink from the Cup of Thanksgiving, which gives us new life, as a new creation, in Christ, free from sin. 


Jesus went all in for us. He drank the Cup of Wrath so that we do not have to.  We are called to go all in as well. In response to Christ dying for our forgiveness, we are called to live our lives as a servant of Christ, carrying out His will each and every step of the way, and living our lives as examples and vessels of Christ's love, carrying it to all nations and all peoples.

God Is Love

I heard a sermon today in Church that sparked in me the desire to write about it.  It’s not something I haven’t heard before, but I think something that we often forget. 

Since living in DC I’ve been going to a church that meets in the basement of a coffee house around the corner from where we’re living.  It’s a fairly young church, with I think 4 or 5 other campuses around DC. 

Today’s sermon was on 1 John 4:7-21 (click to read it).  One of the points of emphasis of the sermon was that God is love.  The pastor started out by reading the passage, then talked a bit about how we define love.  She got us thinking by saying “what if we replaced “love” here with “nice?”  Instead of “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” It would be: God is nice.  Whoever is nice lives in God and God in them.  When we change that, it loses so much meaning, not to mention the implications it would have for our faith, and for God being a just God.  See, if we really think about it, God is not nice.  God is love.  God is just.  God is not nice.  If God were nice he would not punish sin.  If God were nice, Ananias and Sapphira would not have been struck dead.  But God isn’t nice, He’s just.  It reminds of a scene in “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.”  You can see the video if you click here and start at the 6:00 mark.  In the book it happens far earlier, and here is the text from the book (a bit more meaningful)

“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver, “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

Then, being typical me, I started thinking about how this applies to social justice.  If God is love, and being born of God and knowing God means we must love, then shouldn’t we show the same love to others that Jesus showed to us? 

John says that “whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar.  For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen” (1 John 7:20).  We see the poor and suffering all around us, yet we continue to allow them to suffer in their poverty, and we allow people all over the world to suffer in justices because we sit by idly and do nothing.  

At a time when so many political issues are related to the budget and there are talks everywhere about cutting spending, I wonder about how this applies to foreign aid and welfare spending.  Republicans in congress claim that we need to cut foreign aid from the budget, and reduce spending on social welfare programs, yet I ask, in this, how are we showing love to our brothers and sisters?  If we are called to love our brothers and sisters, and if God says that if we know Him, then love will flow out from us, how can we justify cutting programs that help those most in need?

Those are some thoughts for now.  I’d love to see comments on this and have a conversation about it.