The Climb

My daughter, Abigail, is a huge fan of a young lady who is quickly becoming an international superstar, named Miley Cyrus. Who would have known that the daughter of the master of the "Achy Breaky Heart" would someday become blog material for me? Nevertheless, she has a song out right now called "The Climb". It is a song that has challenged me greatly. It has encouraged me to realize that the challenges of life are really not about arriving at a destination, nor is it about accomplishing the challenge of the peak. The things we go through in life are really about the journey - it's really about the climb. God works on our character, makes improvements to our life, helps us to become more like Him as we journey up the steep passages to higher altitudes.

There are so many different analogies we can use to describe the process. It has been referred to among others as the refiner's fire, the potter's wheel, and the pruner's sheer. Whatever you want to call the process, isn't it great to know that Jesus isn't finished with us yet. There was a song that we used to sing when I was a kid, "He's still working on me, to make me what I ought to be, It took Him just a week to make the moon and the stars, the sun and the Earth and Jupiter and Mars, How loving and patient He must be, He's still working on me." (Thanks Joel Hemphill.) Patiently God's works on us helping us to become more like Him and thus fulfill His plan for our life. Sometimes the process of becoming like Him causes us to arrive at the base of a mountain - what feels like something in our life that's so big we'll never reach the peak. But the purpose the mountain for you and I has less to do with the top than it does with every foothold and handhold along the way. It really is about the climb. Every inch gained, every cleared pass, every foot hold secured, every steep ascent are all just moments of God's strength gained in our life. They are simply proving points where our character fades to the background and the character of Christ comes to the surface. We become more like Him.

I know I've talked a lot about songs today but another song that I heard recently, I haven't been able to stop singing. I heard Jason Crabb sing a song recently called "That's No Mountain". The lyrics are as follows:

I looked at that mountain that stood in my way
Would this be my last climb, would this be my fate?
How my heart beat so fearful, what challenge awaits
But, strength rose up in me, God's power and grace

That's no mountain for a climber
I know what awaits at the peak
Jesus is there watching over,
to see if his help I will need
He makes sure that his dear precious children
Don't fall by the trial so steep
That's no mountain for a climber
When the maker of the mountain is standing by me

I beheld all the footprints that had been there before
Up through the cliffs and the rocks til' I could see them no more
And, I wondered what brave ones would challenge such feat
God said "It's the saints, child, that's gone on before thee

I'm so thankful to know that the mountains that are in the path that God has chosen for me were created by Him. His intention is for me to make it through every trial I face and so He has prepared what is needed for me to make it to the peak of this mountain. As a matter of fact, when I look back over my life and I see the size of the mountains I've already scaled, I've gained the necessary climbing skills to make it through this one as well. This is no mountain for a climber. My gear is prepared. I've got the necessary tools. Jesus has prepared and laid out the path I'm to take. He has planned the journey. My ropes are tied off. It's time to climb!

Until next time - love all of you - thank for reading! God bless all of the climbers! Regardless of where you are on the mountain - remember it really is about the climb! -- RP

Moving Forward

When Paul wrote his now famous words in the 3rd chapter of the book of Philippians, ". . .forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal. . .", I doubt that he knew the impact those words would be making in my life in the year 2009. No in fact, I'm confident that Paul in a letter sent to one of his favorite churches in the City of Philippi was trying to encourage them and to share with them the reason for his hope and his joy. And so he tells them - I'm not perfect, I have not attained all that God has for me, but I'm not gonna continue to spend my life looking backwards with regret - yes, I killed Christians and yes, I held the coats of executioners with big rocks who stoned Stephen - BUT I'm forgetting those things which are behind me and I'm MOVING FORWARD.

I believe that God has placed within each of us amazing dreams, awesome opportunities and unbelievable hope and yet because of the mistakes of yesterday, the condemnation of the past and the reminders of others, we many times disqualify ourselves from God's best and we are satisfied with mediocrity because that's what we determine we are deserving based on yesterday. We think that somehow a mistake we made in a moment of weakness OR maybe even a bunch of moments of weakness somehow places us outside of the mercies and grace of our great God. As if the mistakes of our past are somehow bigger than the ones Jesus died for. As if His grace is somehow nullified because our memory won't allow us to forget.

Today, I'm MOVING FORWARD. Yesterday, I can't change. You can't either. The only thing I can control is my response to yesterday. I could wallow in self-pity begging for each breath as the waves of doubt and disillusionment crash in on me threatening to rob me of the very life that God created for me. OR I can MOVE FORWARD. I could continue to look backward reminding myself over and over of my mistakes and live an existence of condemnation and misery. OR I can MOVE FORWARD. I could question my existence, wonder if I'm even worthy and listen to the naysayers who say I'm not. OR I can MOVE FORWARD.

Paul's words have brought me such comfort and they should you as well. "Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead. . ." Think about those words for a moment. Releasing the past into the hands of God, Paul says he reaches forward. Paul lets us know that regardless of the damage of his past, regardless of how bad it may have been, regardless of what others were saying about him - Paul says that God had placed before him a goal, a prize, a future that was worthwhile that he was reaching forward to obtain. He hadn't reached it yet but he was not going to allow the past to rob him of his future . . . and you shouldn't either.

I'm not who others say I am. I'm not who my past says I am. I'm not who my enemies think I am. I'm not who my friends think I am. I'm not who the devil thinks I am. I am simply who God thinks I am. Because of his death at Calvary and His subsequent resurrection from the grave - I am Forgiven. I am His child. I am filled with His Spirit. My present in His hands. My future is secure. I am in Christ - and if any man is in Christ he is a new creation, old things have passed away and all things have become new. In Christ, I am forgiven. In Christ, I am secure. In Christ, I am free. Free from the past - free from the condemnation of others - free from the clutches of sin. I am free. And you can be too.

What dreams has God placed in you that you have allowed mistakes of yesterday convince you will never come to pass? What goals have you given up on because you thought your mistakes disqualified you from your future? What promises do you think God has chosen not to fulfill because you have made too many mistakes? It's time to forget those things which are behind and reach forward to those things which are ahead and press toward the goal. It's time to dream again. It's time to believe again. It's time to trust in God's promises again! It's time to MOVE FORWARD!

Let's together follow the example of the Apostle Paul - let's forget and let's MOVE FORWARD. God's plan and the future He has for each of us are bigger than the mistakes of yesterday. If we've confessed our mistakes, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It's time to forget yesterday and move forward into the future God has for you!

Until next time, I'm MOVING FORWARD - God bless each of you - I love you all! --- RP

God Speaks

Wouldn't it be cool if every time you needed to hear something from God, an audible voice would boom out of heaven and tell you everything you needed to know? Wouldn't it be cool if in our moments of frustration or even our moments of celebration we could hear with our ears the voice of God directing us and talking to us and letting us know His thoughts on the matters at hand? Wouldn't it be cool if the voice of God was clear and loud and there was never any question about His will or His plan or His thinking on the things that we are facing in life? While many times we would love to hear with our ears the voice of God, it is usually another part of our anatomy that needs to be in tune when God speaks. Our minds and our hearts need to be in alignment with the thinking of our Creator if we are ever going to truly acknowledge and follow His voice in those moments when He speaks.

Probably because of our humanity, we think of God's ability to speak to us based on the way that we speak to others. Obviously our most important mechanism of speech comes from our mouth. Our vocal chords all harmonize together to produce a sound that crosses our tongue and our lips and we form words to say what we are thinking. Another important mechanism of speech is our face - facial expressions convey mood and demeanor and many times the true intention of the words that are flowing from the mouth. Finally body language is keenly important in comprehending speech between two parties - some people aren't as good at reading body language but it speaks volumes when observed. Ironically enough, it is humanities ability to communicate that sometimes hinders our ability to hear the voice of God but that does not change the fact that God still speaks.

God is a spirit - and from my abilities of observation I have yet to see the face, body or mouth of a spirit. And for most what we can't observe with our eyes, we have a hard time comprehending with our heart. And yet God still speaks. It may not be what you are used to. It may not be the way you thought it would be. It may not occur in the format or fashion that you prescribed it and it may not fit in the box that you created for it BUT the voice of God will still speak into your life if you have a heart to listen.

Throughout scripture there are numerous occurrences of the phrase, "He that hath an hear to hear, let him hear. . ." As a kid, I used to think, "Well that's kind of a silly statement. There can't be that many deaf people in the world - everybody should have an ear that can hear." In my naivete, I missed the point that it's not really about having ears that hear, but it's really about having a heart that is listening. My daughter, Abigail, who is an amazing young lady, absolutely beautiful, is quite a talker. There are times, being the horrible father that I am :-), that I tune her out. It doesn't mean I'm suddenly deaf, it just means I'm not listening. Sometimes I fear that we do the same to God.

God speaks in so many ways. The vastness of the volumes of the words that He has spoken would leave us staggering under its weight. Everyday He speaks. Whether it's through the birth of a new child, or the death of a loved one, He speaks. Whether it's the waves that crash on the sea shore or the wind that moves the leaves on the trees, He speaks. Through sunrises and sunsets, He speaks. Through little reminders that He's thinking of you OR major moments of the miraculous, He speaks. Whether through great men of God OR stubborn eye-opened donkeys, He speaks. It's not a matter of whether He's talking or not - the question is, ARE YOU LISTENING? Really Listening?

There have been recent moments in my life when I've felt like Job, when it seemed that everything that could go wrong did. And like Job, I threw myself pity parties and screamed at the heavens and griped at God because of the depth of my tribulation. And like Job, I've had my moments where God finally had enough and spoke back and asked me who exactly I thought I was. (Read the book of Job and look for the part where God says, "Well Job - Where were you. . .?" Beginning at about Job 38) Now unlike Job, I haven't heard the voice of God - but I've been reminded of His greatness so many times. I've been reminded that He knows the path that I take and that He'll never leave me or forsake me and that in the time of trouble He will hide me and that when my enemies would come in like a flood, that He would raise up a standard against them and that when I fall, I shall arise, not by my own power or strength but rather by His ability to lift me up and to set my feet and establish my goings. The Word of God is filled with monumental, life changing, words directly from the heart of God and if you have the heart to hear, if you are really willing to listen, everyday in countless ways, He is screaming of His love toward you!

May God bless - love you all - until next time, keep listening, because He's speaking! - RP

What? No Tartar Sauce. . .

I've been reflecting a lot over the last couple of days on one of Jesus' most amazing miracles. I'm honestly just amazed at it and the magnitude of it is hard for me to get my mind around. There's so many unique angles about this story and then with the way my mind works, I've been looking at all the subplots within the story itself. Have you ever stopped to really think about all the people that were in the crowd that day? I mean there was 5,000 men, plus women and children. There's a lot of folks to consider, to keep track of and to think about. So I've thought a lot about them. And I came up with a few additional questions I'd like to ask. For instance:

• With 5,000 men, plus women and children, how did the disciples find the one boy with enough foresight to pack a lunch?
• Out of 5,000 men, plus women and children, you can't possibly tell me that only one boy had some food? Somebody was holding out. There was at least a chicken nugget happy meal somewhere in the crowd.
• 5,000 men, plus women and children - there had to be at least one wife who said, "We should have stopped at the last exit and got some food."
• When the disciples wanted to send the 5,000 men, plus women and children away so they could get their own food, where were they going to send them all? Golden Corral?
• If this miracle had happened today, with 5,000 men, plus women and children, there would have been at least one ungrateful, miserable wretch of a hungry person who said, "What? You give me a fish sandwich and no tartar sauce?"

Seriously though - this story has always fascinated me for so many reasons. And it speaks to me, no matter how many times I've read it. Imagine sitting on the ground with 5,000 of your closest buddies, plus their wives and kids and watching Jesus pull off piece after piece of bread and piece after piece of fish and it never running out. Imagine eating all you could handle, everybody around you doing the same, and then the disciples come around for the leftovers and what was once 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread is now 12 baskets of remnants. Imagine how amazed that kid must have been - to have seen this small lunch feed so many. Could he have ever questioned the power of God again? I think not. . .

Isn't Jesus truly amazing? He specializes in taking little and creating much. I am confident that when I am fresh out of resources, tapped out of finances, completely void of supply, that is when Jesus is finally freed up to do His best work. He doesn't need much to make a lot. It is when I have little that He opens His greatest opportunities. I'm so thankful that when we are in lack, He is full of supply and when trusted in and called upon, He never wonders where the answer will come from. No - He simply takes what little we've brought - blesses it and begins to break it - and as He does, it begins to multiply in His hands.

I really think that there is something about the "breaking." I have found that I rarely see God using my life to be multiplied and a blessing to others as long as I'm not broken. "A broken and a contrite spirit, Oh God you will not despise. . ." When we are broken in the hands of God, He then is able to multiply us, make us usable and give us the opportunity to feed the hungry that are around us everyday. Proud people don't give up their lunch. Prideful people don't share with others - they hoard it all for themselves. It is the humble and the broken that's willing to be a blessing because they know what it's like to need to be fixed. That young boy knew what it was like to go out and be hungry so he'd packed a lunch. And when Jesus asked it for, he gladly turned over to the hands of the master.

I'm also amazed at the leftovers. Where there was once lack, there's abundant supply. Not just enough - not barely enough to feed everybody, but rather enough to have sandwiches tomorrow. I love Thanksgiving. I love the turkey, the mashed potatoes, the gravy, all the trimmings, the vegetables cooked just right, the desserts galore. I love it all. But do you know what my favorite part is? Believe it or not, it's typically about 7 pm on Thanksgiving night as the late football game is about to be completed, when I go to the fridge and I find the platter of leftover turkey meat and I pull out the mayo and the black pepper and the bread and I make myself my leftover turkey sandwich. I don't know why I like it so much. I don't know why it's so appealing to me. But for some reason, I love eating my leftover sandwich. It reminds me of how good the day has been, the joy of sitting around the table just a few hours earlier. All the wonderful flavors of Thanksgiving are wrapped up in my sandwich made from leftovers. Now imagine, when they cracked open those baskets, later that day - there was 12 of them, 1 for each disciple - as each disciple pulled out his bread and his fish fragments, can you imagine how much they thought about what Jesus had done. Can you imagine the stories? "Man, I saw Jesus pull off a hunk of bread and it immediately grew back." "Dude, one time I saw him tear the tail off the fish, and it immediately came back - how does that happen?" I don't know what they said, but what a cool reminder of the miraculous power of provision that was in the hands of the Master. I'm not sure what they said - I'm not sure what they thought - but after seeing such a great and amazing miracle - I'm confident that there was enough faith in the crowd to ask for tartar sauce and expect it to show up.

Until next time - God bless - love you all and I'm believing God with you for the blessing, the breaking and the fish sandwich multiplication in my life and yours - RP

The Force of Forgiveness

Have you ever stopped to wonder what makes people act the way they do? What makes a philanthropist give or a murderer kill? What drives some to stand up for the weak and others to bully them? What causes one to seek for retribution when wronged and another to trust in God and grant mercy? Whatever the reason, each of us go through life with options as to how we will respond to any given situation. There will be times for all of us when we will be wronged. Things will not always work out the way we think that it should. There will always be times when, whether intentional or not, things will happen in our life that will cause us pain. It is how we respond in these moments that truly determine whether we will live our lives bound in bitterness or free in the liberty of Christ.

Bitterness can be such an imposing force in the lives of those who are bound by it. So many live their lives, unable to get beyond wrongs that have been committed against them and they suffer in prisons that they create for themselves, never truly able to live the life of freedom God designed for them. Instead they live their life always lashing out attempting to gain revenge for wrongs, sometimes real, sometime perceived, committed against them. Ironically enough, Paul tell us that vengeance belongs to God and when we attempt to exact our revenge on those who have caused us pain, we're really trying to act in the place of God. Terry Shock in a message he preached recently said that bitterness is a poison pill that we take hoping someone else will die. What an accurate description. So many Christians are literally swallowing the pill wishing ill will on others, meanwhile the poisonous bile of bitterness is creating havoc on their spiritual man, their biological systems and ultimately their eternal soul. Max Lucado describes bitterness as a cancer that ravages the soul and truly if we allow it, bitterness will indeed destroy the very life that Jesus died for.

I believe, that our world today in the year 2009, is being ravaged by bitterness brought on by an unwillingness to forgive. We are taught that when we are wronged, someone must pay the price. We are taught that for every crime there must be a penalty; for every bad deed, there must be a resulting punishment. This is drilled into us from our earliest days and when it comes to wrongs committed against us, we have a tendency to want retribution, we want punishment and we want it now. The Bible tells us that Jesus paid our penalty, made our retribution, took our punishment and in the process we all were given access to the force of the forgiveness of Christ. This forgiveness, we will gladly accept for ourselves but when it comes to extending it to others, we have a tendency to withhold. Forgiveness when withheld places us in a position and seat of judgment that we were never meant to be in .

In Luke 6, Jesus makes such a profound statement that I'm truly humbled by its simplicity and yet amazed by the force of its implication: "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." All my life I've heard preachers, pastors, and offering takers use the latter half of that passage in an effort to instill the principal of the importance of giving (and who knows, sometimes in an effort to get a few more dollars in the plate :-). For the longest time, I never associated the first half of the passage with the second half of the passage. But Jesus tells us that the same level of judgment and condemnation that we dish out, it will come back to us. It also tells us that the measurement of our forgiveness of others is also the measurement with which we'll be forgiven. God gives us a tremendous tool of blessing or cursing - it's really up to us. You can live bound by bitterness, condemnation, judgment and unforgiveness OR you can choose to forgive. When we choose to forgive we open a window of forgiveness in our own life. We can then live free from the guilt of the mistakes of our past - because we've learned to forgive others, we can then experience the force of forgiveness in our own lives. I don't know about you but judgment and condemnation were not the character traits that God wanted in me. And when it comes to forgiveness and giving, I want Jesus to be able to back up the truck and dump it out in my life - so I've got to first be able to forgive liberally, willingly and without regret. The true key to forgiveness is understanding that I'm not saying that the wrong that was done to me is actually right. True forgiveness is saying, I'm leaving the past buried in the past, I'm entrusting it to the hands of God because I know that at the end of the day, he will do what is right. And so today, if you've wronged me, you are forgiven. Life is too short for me to be bitter. AND if I've wronged you, I'm so sorry, please forgive me - let's together pledge to live a life FREE from judgment and condemnation and trust in the forgiveness of our great SAVIOR.

Love all of you - let's have a great week in Jesus! -- RP

Freedom's Price

Today, I am profoundly afraid that many of my generation and those younger than I have lost touch with the true cost of Freedom. Freedom has been drilled into us as our birthright, our God-given right to live within the confines of Freedom. We take for granted the freedoms that we enjoy and we forget that their are so many who are not so fortunate. We walk through life assuming that so much of what we enjoy will always remain, even as each day those same freedoms are infringed on more and more. We no longer are truly appreciative nor respectful of the freedom that we have come to know and love. And when a generation loses touch with the value of it's freedom, can it truly be said that they still value it's cost.

Freedom is not, was not, and never will be FREE. It carries a steep price. I know that is cliche and yet because we have not for the most part been forced to step up to the check-out stand and foot the bill, we lessen it's true cost. Oh, we read about it in our history books, even as the intellectuals of our day, question their validity. Yes, we see books about it in our bookstores, alongside liberal interpretations of hatred spun at our men and women who are forced into impossible situations but serve the cause of freedom none-the-less. You see, my fear is that in our desire as a nation to remain politically correct and to promote freedom in every corner of our globe, there are some who use those freedoms to denigrate the price it took to purchase them. I fear that the country that we have become is a far cry from the beacon of liberty that our forefathers envisioned when they sat down and wrote the now famous words, "We the people of the United States. . .". We must now remind the next generation, our children, our children's children of the true cost of freedom, less they have a country that has returned to the shackles of servitude that our forefathers fought to free us from.

I'm reminded of the Children of Israel, having been delivered from the shackles of Egypt. They had a paid a great price in Egypt and yet, had grown to be a great nation. Upon leaving Egypt, with quite a display of the power of God, Moses insisted that they build memorials, altars really made of stone, as constant reminders to generations that would follow of what it took for them to be free of Egypt. Moses went on to say in Deuteronomy, referring to the laws of God and the history of the people of Israel, that parents were to constantly keep these things before their children's eyes. They should talk about them when they were in the street and when they got up in the morning and when they went to bed at night - less they forgot the Lord and His hand that had delivered them.

We are a nation of memorials. We have statues and buildings and sculptures in honor of the price that men and women paid for freedom. And unfortunately many times, because we've seen them so often, our familiarity breeds apathy and we fail to recognize or promote the true cost of freedom. Let this serve as a clarion call, a reminder to all of my generation, that when we see a memorial - that we stop and remember the cost of our fellow citizens to purchase the freedom that we so gladly and readily enjoy.

And as great as our political and personal freedom is - it pales in comparison to our spiritual freedom. Spiritually the Bible tells us that we were all dead in our sin. It tells that the just reward of our sin was death. It tells us that all of us are sinners and so therefore no matter who we are, we were shackled and enslaved to our sinful nature - and yet there was one who willing to pay the price of freedom - to set you and I free from spiritual death and eternal hell. It was a price that all of us were responsible for and yet He paid it on our behalf. When the cry that shook heaven and Earth from the top of Golgotha came from the soul of Jesus Christ, "IT IS FINISHED", the transaction was complete, the bill paid. He took upon himself the sin of humanity and was willing to do it because your freedom and my freedom was worth the price. Today, you can be free. You can live free from the sin of this world. Not because you have the power to do so, but simply because He paid the price for your freedom. That's why Paul could write, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away and behold all things have become new." Thank God that He was willing to pay the price for you & I.

I close once again with the words of a Gaither Vocal Band song, titled "Let Freedom Ring":

Deep within the heart has always known that there was freedom
Somehow breathed into the very soul alive
The prisoner, the powerless, the saved have always known it
There’s something that keeps reaching for the sky

Even life begins because a baby fights for freedom
And songs we love to sing have freedom’s theme
Some have walked through fire and flood to find a place of freedom
And some faced hell itself for freedom’s dream

Let freedom ring wherever minds know what it means to be in chains
Let freedom ring wherever hearts know pain
Let freedom echo through the lonely streets where prisons have no key
We can be free and we can sing --- let freedom ring

God built freedom into every fiber of creation
And He meant for us to all be free and whole
When my Lord bought freedom with the blood of His redemption
His cross stamped pardon on my very soul

I’ll sing it out with every breath, I’ll let the whole world hear it
This hallelujah anthem of the free
That iron bars and heavy chains can never hold us captive
The Son has made us free and free indeed

Let freedom ring down through the ages from a hill called Calvary
Let freedom ring wherever hearts know pain
Let freedom echo through the lonely streets where prisons have no key
You can be free and you can sing let freedom ring
Let freedom echo through the lonely streets where prisons have no key
You can be free and you can sing let freedom ring
You can be free and you can sing --- let freedom ring --- let freedom ring

This Independence Day, take the time to remember the price of freedom. Thank God for men and women who have laid down their very life for our Independence. But more importantly breath a prayer of thanks, that there was a man who carried on His shoulders a cross that was weighed down by the sin of an entire race of people and He was willing to do it to break the chains of the curse of sin ONCE AND FOR ALL. . . If you haven't done so, find your Freedom in Christ Jesus today - and if you have, celebrate the fact that Jesus paid the price that you might be free.

Love everyone - Happy Independence Day - pass it on to your kids that freedom is not free - thank someone who paid the price - and pray everyday that God will continue to bless America! -- RP