Six months ago, a fifteen-year-old FFA student named Skylar went to her home in heaven after an accident. She was in a suburban with other students and a school teacher heading to an FFA event when the accident occurred.
Last night, her dad, David, spoke to a house full of men about the journey of his family's loss. To say that it was touching is an enormous understatement. Yes, every man in the room was touched to see the grace of God at work in the life of a man faced with such grief and heartache. But more than that, we were challenged to live for God like never before.
David spoke from the raw, yet deep experiences of his six-month journey and came to some very sobering decisions. He said that when you go through something like what he and his family are going through, you have two options: "fall back on God or push God away." I am so thankful to have witnessed what happens in a man's life when he decides to fall wholeheartedly back on God. Everything changes. Especially your focus and your purpose.
David goes to bed at night and asks two questions: 1) What did I do for God today, and 2) what did God do for me today? He said the second one is always easier to list than the first. God always does more for us than we do for Him, but why don't we do more for Him than we do?
I didn't know Skylar until last night. I can honestly say I know her now because I've seen her through her daddy's heart. Her relatively short time on this earth was well-lived for her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Because of the way she lived her life for Christ, others have come to accept Him as their personal Savior, including a young girl whose route to school every day goes by the scene of the accident where Skylar died. That young girl and her family learned about Skylar and the way she lived her life for Christ, and she wanted to know Skylar's Savior personally.
I am challenged today by a dad whose love for God is helping him walk through the darkest nights of his life with a light that helps others find, believe in, and cling to our heavenly Father. The heart of that dad reminds me of the heart of that Father. God, our heavenly Father, gave His only Son willingly to die on the cross as an eternal payment for your sins and mine. That's an awesome Father, an amazing gift, and an incredible love!
Wherever you are right now -- whatever you're going through -- would you stop for a minute and make a decision to fall wholeheartedly into the arms of God? Pushing Him away only leads to darker darkness, lonelier loneliness, and emptier emptiness.
Darkness needs light. Loneliness needs presence. Emptiness needs substance. God gives all three generously to those who seek Him.
What can I do for You today, Lord?
Perry Crisp
Showing posts with label grace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grace. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Monday, November 29, 2010
Free Indeed
Shon Hopwood was not a particularly sophisticated bank robber. His bank-robbing strategy was not well planned. Listen to the strategy of someone assuming one of the most difficult tasks to get away with in this country: “We would walk into a bank with firearms, tell people to get down, take the money and run.”
Brilliant, right? Wrong. Shon pulled off 5 robberies in rural Nebraska in 1997 and 1998 that only brought in $200,000 in cash and resulted in over a decade-long vacation in federal prison. Yep. He got caught and went to prison.
No one was hurt in Mr. Hopwood’s bank robberies, but, according to the judge who sentenced Shon to prison in 1999, he and his accomplices “scared the (inserting Baptifanity* replacement word) heck out of the poor bank tellers.”
The judge was skeptical about Mr. Hopwood’s vow that he would change. He had heard it over and over again from those caught and convicted of crimes. After Shon's pledge to change, the judge said, “We’ll know in about 13 years if you mean what you say.”
Getting caught has a way of changing us. The honesty of it all is this: We get caught every time. There is never a time, never a crime, never a sin, never a slight of hand or eye that is not both seen and recorded. God sees. God knows. When I miss the mark, He doesn’t miss noticing that I missed the mark.
Ironically, getting caught is sometimes the door to true freedom. You’ll find that out about Shon Hopwood in a few minutes. You can see it in a nameless criminal in the gospel of Luke 23, beginning at verse 32 right now.
"There were also two others, criminals, led with Him (Jesus) to be put to death" (Luke 23:32). Criminals. The King James Version calls them "malefactors." The word in Luke is a combination of two words: "evil" and "work." Luke called them evildoers. Matthew and Mark were more specific and called them robbers. Luke wasn’t concerned with the flavor, just the poison. Sin is sin regardless of the label.
Matthew says that both men joined in the sneering and mocking of Jesus at first. But somewhere between verses 37 and 39 of Luke’s account, one of the criminals began to have a change of heart. After the other criminal screamed at Jesus to save Himself and them if He truly was the Messiah, the other criminal rebuked his partner in crime. He confessed that, of the three hanging on a cross that day, only one didn't deserve to be there. Then he turned to Jesus and said, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom" (v. 42).
How is getting caught the door to true freedom? To receive the forgiveness of God, you have to first admit you failed. Our conscience is supposed to weigh on us. And it usually does, but not always. When we continue on and push past our conscience, a hardness begins to set in. If left to harden and callous, we can become our very own hardened criminal. Sometimes, the only hope we have left is to get caught.
Had this criminal not been caught and punished on that very day, he may have never looked within himself nor to the Man on the Middle Cross who died to pay the price for his own evil work. But he did get caught. He did hang on a cross to pay humanity for his evil work. Yet simultaneously, the Man next to him hung on the cross to pay the debt owed to God by that evil worker…and this one.
One word made the difference… “Lord.” Jesus, by His own reply to that man in verse 43, opened a door no one ever thought could be opened for such a man. “Today, you will be with Me in Paradise."
No one would have ever picked that cross-hanging criminal to be the Valedictorian of Redemption. If he'd had a high school yearbook, the only thing written in it would have been, "You'll never amount to anything." Had we interviewed the old men from his neighborhood, they would have spoken of him in disgust, "That boy has been trouble since the day he was born."
But that boy was escorted by Jesus to the kingdom of heaven as the first trophy of God's amazing, redeeming grace.
Shon committed the crime and was forced to do the time. Once behind bars, Mr. Hopwood quickly began soul-searching. Prison has a way of getting a person’s attention. Shon said, “I didn’t want prison to be my destiny. When your life gets tipped over and spilled out, you have to make some changes.”
I would like to say that Shon turned to the Lord. He didn’t. Instead, he spent much of his time in the prison law library, and it turned out he was better at understanding the law than breaking it. He achieved something rare at the top levels of the American bar, and unheard of for someone behind bars: Shon Hopwood became an accomplished Supreme Court practitioner.
He prepared his first petition for certiorari (sir-she-o-rari) — a request that the Supreme Court hear a case — for a fellow inmate using a prison typewriter in 2002. Since Mr. Hopwood wasn’t a lawyer, the only name on the brief was that of the other prisoner, John Fellers.
That year, the court received 7,209 petitions from prisoners and others too poor to pay the filing fee, and it agreed to hear only 8 of them. One was Fellers v. United States .
Seth Waxman was the United States Solicitor General at the time. He had argued more than 50 cases in the Supreme Court. Of Shon’s petition, Waxman said, “It was probably one of the best cert. petitions I have ever read. It was just terrific.”
Mr. Waxman agreed to take the case on without payment. But he had one condition: “I will represent you,” Mr. Waxman told Mr. Fellers, “If we can get this guy Shon Hopwood involved.” Mr. Fellers agreed and they both felt good that Shon was there to quarterback the effort.
The former solicitor general showed Shon drafts of his legal briefings. The two men consulted about how to frame the arguments, discussed strategy, and tried to anticipate questions from the justices.
In January 2004, Mr. Waxman called Mr. Hopwood at the federal prison in Illinois to tell him they had won a 9-to-0 victory. Mr. Fellers’s sentence was reduced by 4 years.
The law library changed Mr. Hopwood’s life. Mr. Hopwood helped inmates from Indiana , Michigan and Nebraska get sentence reductions. Mr. Hopwood was released from prison in the fall of 2008. Mr. Fellers, the fellow inmate who was first assisted by Shon, was out before Shon, and owned a thriving car dealership in Lincoln, Nebraska .
“Here,” Mr. Fellers said, presenting his jailhouse lawyer with a 1989 Mercedes in pristine condition. “Thank you for getting me back to my daughter.”
Mr. Hopwood now works for a leading printer of Supreme Court briefs, Cockle Printing in Omaha . “What a perfect fit for me,” he said. “I basically get to help attorneys get their cases polished and perfected.”
His boss at Cockle said she had some misgivings about hiring Mr. Hopwood. It was hard to believe his story to start with, and it was really odd to see an aspiring paralegal driving around in a Mercedes.
But she called Mr. Hopwood’s references, including the former solicitor general, and was not only surprised to get right through to Mr. Waxman, but to hear his glowing endorsement of Shon. Did you catch that? Shon got through on the recommendation of a higher authority. So did the man in Luke 23. So do we.
Mr. Hopwood, who is 34, hopes to attend law at the University of Michigan. Mr. Hopwood’s personal life is looking up, too. He is married, and he and his wife had a son on Christmas Day.
A professor at Michigan who had worked with Shon in previous court cases said, “His gratitude for the quality of his life is that of someone who has come back from a near-death experience.”**
I know someone like that. Several someones. The man from Luke 23, the man who wrote what you are reading, and quite possibly the person now reading these words. Ours wasn't a "near-death" experience. It was a "true-death" experience. We were truly dead in our sins and needed the life-giving power of the blood of Jesus to make us alive to God. When you've been brought from death to life, you can't help but be grateful.
Excerpts from my favorite current writer are quite fitting here:
"The past doesn’t have to be your prison. You have a voice in your destiny. You have a say in your life. You have a choice in the path you take."
Remember this. Jesus, from the cross "saw you cast into a river of life you didn't request. He saw you betrayed by those you love. He saw you with a body that gets sick and a heart that grows weak. He saw you in your own garden of gnarled trees and sleeping friends. He saw you staring into the pit of your own failures and the mouth of your own grave. He saw you in your own garden of Gethsemane and he didn't want you to be alone ... He would rather go to hell for you than to heaven without you."***
Free Indeed,
Perry Crisp
*Baptifanity - replacement words used by Baptists instead of cusswords.
**Shon's story was published in the New York Times, February 9, 2010, and was written by Adam Liptak.
***Max Lucado
Brilliant, right? Wrong. Shon pulled off 5 robberies in rural Nebraska in 1997 and 1998 that only brought in $200,000 in cash and resulted in over a decade-long vacation in federal prison. Yep. He got caught and went to prison.
No one was hurt in Mr. Hopwood’s bank robberies, but, according to the judge who sentenced Shon to prison in 1999, he and his accomplices “scared the (inserting Baptifanity* replacement word) heck out of the poor bank tellers.”
The judge was skeptical about Mr. Hopwood’s vow that he would change. He had heard it over and over again from those caught and convicted of crimes. After Shon's pledge to change, the judge said, “We’ll know in about 13 years if you mean what you say.”
Getting caught has a way of changing us. The honesty of it all is this: We get caught every time. There is never a time, never a crime, never a sin, never a slight of hand or eye that is not both seen and recorded. God sees. God knows. When I miss the mark, He doesn’t miss noticing that I missed the mark.
Ironically, getting caught is sometimes the door to true freedom. You’ll find that out about Shon Hopwood in a few minutes. You can see it in a nameless criminal in the gospel of Luke 23, beginning at verse 32 right now.
"There were also two others, criminals, led with Him (Jesus) to be put to death" (Luke 23:32). Criminals. The King James Version calls them "malefactors." The word in Luke is a combination of two words: "evil" and "work." Luke called them evildoers. Matthew and Mark were more specific and called them robbers. Luke wasn’t concerned with the flavor, just the poison. Sin is sin regardless of the label.
Matthew says that both men joined in the sneering and mocking of Jesus at first. But somewhere between verses 37 and 39 of Luke’s account, one of the criminals began to have a change of heart. After the other criminal screamed at Jesus to save Himself and them if He truly was the Messiah, the other criminal rebuked his partner in crime. He confessed that, of the three hanging on a cross that day, only one didn't deserve to be there. Then he turned to Jesus and said, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom" (v. 42).
How is getting caught the door to true freedom? To receive the forgiveness of God, you have to first admit you failed. Our conscience is supposed to weigh on us. And it usually does, but not always. When we continue on and push past our conscience, a hardness begins to set in. If left to harden and callous, we can become our very own hardened criminal. Sometimes, the only hope we have left is to get caught.
Had this criminal not been caught and punished on that very day, he may have never looked within himself nor to the Man on the Middle Cross who died to pay the price for his own evil work. But he did get caught. He did hang on a cross to pay humanity for his evil work. Yet simultaneously, the Man next to him hung on the cross to pay the debt owed to God by that evil worker…and this one.
One word made the difference… “Lord.” Jesus, by His own reply to that man in verse 43, opened a door no one ever thought could be opened for such a man. “Today, you will be with Me in Paradise."
No one would have ever picked that cross-hanging criminal to be the Valedictorian of Redemption. If he'd had a high school yearbook, the only thing written in it would have been, "You'll never amount to anything." Had we interviewed the old men from his neighborhood, they would have spoken of him in disgust, "That boy has been trouble since the day he was born."
But that boy was escorted by Jesus to the kingdom of heaven as the first trophy of God's amazing, redeeming grace.
Shon committed the crime and was forced to do the time. Once behind bars, Mr. Hopwood quickly began soul-searching. Prison has a way of getting a person’s attention. Shon said, “I didn’t want prison to be my destiny. When your life gets tipped over and spilled out, you have to make some changes.”
I would like to say that Shon turned to the Lord. He didn’t. Instead, he spent much of his time in the prison law library, and it turned out he was better at understanding the law than breaking it. He achieved something rare at the top levels of the American bar, and unheard of for someone behind bars: Shon Hopwood became an accomplished Supreme Court practitioner.
He prepared his first petition for certiorari (sir-she-o-rari) — a request that the Supreme Court hear a case — for a fellow inmate using a prison typewriter in 2002. Since Mr. Hopwood wasn’t a lawyer, the only name on the brief was that of the other prisoner, John Fellers.
That year, the court received 7,209 petitions from prisoners and others too poor to pay the filing fee, and it agreed to hear only 8 of them. One was Fellers v. United States .
Seth Waxman was the United States Solicitor General at the time. He had argued more than 50 cases in the Supreme Court. Of Shon’s petition, Waxman said, “It was probably one of the best cert. petitions I have ever read. It was just terrific.”
Mr. Waxman agreed to take the case on without payment. But he had one condition: “I will represent you,” Mr. Waxman told Mr. Fellers, “If we can get this guy Shon Hopwood involved.” Mr. Fellers agreed and they both felt good that Shon was there to quarterback the effort.
The former solicitor general showed Shon drafts of his legal briefings. The two men consulted about how to frame the arguments, discussed strategy, and tried to anticipate questions from the justices.
In January 2004, Mr. Waxman called Mr. Hopwood at the federal prison in Illinois to tell him they had won a 9-to-0 victory. Mr. Fellers’s sentence was reduced by 4 years.
The law library changed Mr. Hopwood’s life. Mr. Hopwood helped inmates from Indiana , Michigan and Nebraska get sentence reductions. Mr. Hopwood was released from prison in the fall of 2008. Mr. Fellers, the fellow inmate who was first assisted by Shon, was out before Shon, and owned a thriving car dealership in Lincoln, Nebraska .
“Here,” Mr. Fellers said, presenting his jailhouse lawyer with a 1989 Mercedes in pristine condition. “Thank you for getting me back to my daughter.”
Mr. Hopwood now works for a leading printer of Supreme Court briefs, Cockle Printing in Omaha . “What a perfect fit for me,” he said. “I basically get to help attorneys get their cases polished and perfected.”
His boss at Cockle said she had some misgivings about hiring Mr. Hopwood. It was hard to believe his story to start with, and it was really odd to see an aspiring paralegal driving around in a Mercedes.
But she called Mr. Hopwood’s references, including the former solicitor general, and was not only surprised to get right through to Mr. Waxman, but to hear his glowing endorsement of Shon. Did you catch that? Shon got through on the recommendation of a higher authority. So did the man in Luke 23. So do we.
Mr. Hopwood, who is 34, hopes to attend law at the University of Michigan. Mr. Hopwood’s personal life is looking up, too. He is married, and he and his wife had a son on Christmas Day.
A professor at Michigan who had worked with Shon in previous court cases said, “His gratitude for the quality of his life is that of someone who has come back from a near-death experience.”**
I know someone like that. Several someones. The man from Luke 23, the man who wrote what you are reading, and quite possibly the person now reading these words. Ours wasn't a "near-death" experience. It was a "true-death" experience. We were truly dead in our sins and needed the life-giving power of the blood of Jesus to make us alive to God. When you've been brought from death to life, you can't help but be grateful.
Excerpts from my favorite current writer are quite fitting here:
"The past doesn’t have to be your prison. You have a voice in your destiny. You have a say in your life. You have a choice in the path you take."
Remember this. Jesus, from the cross "saw you cast into a river of life you didn't request. He saw you betrayed by those you love. He saw you with a body that gets sick and a heart that grows weak. He saw you in your own garden of gnarled trees and sleeping friends. He saw you staring into the pit of your own failures and the mouth of your own grave. He saw you in your own garden of Gethsemane and he didn't want you to be alone ... He would rather go to hell for you than to heaven without you."***
Free Indeed,
Perry Crisp
*Baptifanity - replacement words used by Baptists instead of cusswords.
**Shon's story was published in the New York Times, February 9, 2010, and was written by Adam Liptak.
***Max Lucado
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Home is Where the Hard Is
Where do you go when your life's been changed? According to Jesus, you go to the hardest place there is to live a changed life --- home.
Jesus and His disciples hopped in a boat and went across the Sea of Galilee to Gadara. They were met by an unwelcoming committee of demons who had taken up residence in a man's life. They didn't want Jesus near their man-hotel. They liked living inside him and enjoyed torturing him. But he didn't like it so much, so he ran toward Jesus for help.
He got what he hoped for. Jesus evicted the unwelcome gang of demonic thugs from the man's life and sent them into a more fitting host --- a herd of pigs.
The man who had terrorized nearby villages with his screams of demonic torture was released of that evil, and the Bible described him as "sitting and clothed and in his right mind" (Mark 5:15).
The people of the village saw the man sitting there like a normal man and it scared them. It seemed they were more afraid of him now than when he acted like a raving lunatic. People untouched by God's grace don't understand it. They don't trust it. They don't know where to put it or what to do with it. They will "amen" a sermon on grace, forgiveness, and restoration, but they will "oh me" someone they know who used to be a hellion and now claims to be permanently altered by that grace.
Some will even pretend to accept such a person with a hug, a handshake, or a wink. Yet, the wink stays permanent and becomes an attitude of --- "I'm keeping my eye on you." Which is another way of saying, "I believe God can change people, but I'm not sure God can change YOU."
The former host of the demonic tormentors knew this. He took one look at the fear and scowls on the faces of his homies and ran to Jesus a second time. This time he was hoping for a ticket on Jesus' boat so he could get far away from his hometown.
"Jesus, can I please go with you? I'm not welcome here. They won't believe that I've changed. I'll always be the ex-maniac here. They'll never trust me or accept me."
Jesus' answer is hard: "Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you" (verse 19).
The hardest place to live a changed life is at home. Friends and family are the hardest people to convince that you are a new person. No one knows the old you like they do.
But Jesus knows this... If your family and friends can see a difference in you, then everyone else will, too. If it's real, it can pass even the hardest test.
My friend, the world might forever label you as a former this or that. Take heart. The world doesn't have the last word. God does. His wink is genuine. His embrace is everlasting. His home is yours forever.
He will even give you a job: "Tell them what I've done for you and how I love you."
That's change you can truly believe in!
Perry Crisp
Jesus and His disciples hopped in a boat and went across the Sea of Galilee to Gadara. They were met by an unwelcoming committee of demons who had taken up residence in a man's life. They didn't want Jesus near their man-hotel. They liked living inside him and enjoyed torturing him. But he didn't like it so much, so he ran toward Jesus for help.
He got what he hoped for. Jesus evicted the unwelcome gang of demonic thugs from the man's life and sent them into a more fitting host --- a herd of pigs.
The man who had terrorized nearby villages with his screams of demonic torture was released of that evil, and the Bible described him as "sitting and clothed and in his right mind" (Mark 5:15).
The people of the village saw the man sitting there like a normal man and it scared them. It seemed they were more afraid of him now than when he acted like a raving lunatic. People untouched by God's grace don't understand it. They don't trust it. They don't know where to put it or what to do with it. They will "amen" a sermon on grace, forgiveness, and restoration, but they will "oh me" someone they know who used to be a hellion and now claims to be permanently altered by that grace.
Some will even pretend to accept such a person with a hug, a handshake, or a wink. Yet, the wink stays permanent and becomes an attitude of --- "I'm keeping my eye on you." Which is another way of saying, "I believe God can change people, but I'm not sure God can change YOU."
The former host of the demonic tormentors knew this. He took one look at the fear and scowls on the faces of his homies and ran to Jesus a second time. This time he was hoping for a ticket on Jesus' boat so he could get far away from his hometown.
"Jesus, can I please go with you? I'm not welcome here. They won't believe that I've changed. I'll always be the ex-maniac here. They'll never trust me or accept me."
Jesus' answer is hard: "Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you" (verse 19).
The hardest place to live a changed life is at home. Friends and family are the hardest people to convince that you are a new person. No one knows the old you like they do.
But Jesus knows this... If your family and friends can see a difference in you, then everyone else will, too. If it's real, it can pass even the hardest test.
My friend, the world might forever label you as a former this or that. Take heart. The world doesn't have the last word. God does. His wink is genuine. His embrace is everlasting. His home is yours forever.
He will even give you a job: "Tell them what I've done for you and how I love you."
That's change you can truly believe in!
Perry Crisp
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Nose Prose
I have a big nose. There. I said it. It' snot a family trait. Oops. It's not a family trait. It isn't big because I wiggled it too many times. It isn't a compensation for big fingers. My nose is big because of a diving accident.
In my early teens, our community swimming pool had an awesome diving board. It was so limber, it would almost touch the water when you pushed off. Like most pools, this one had a deep end, a shallow end, and a slope bridging the two.
Back in those pre-frivolous lawsuit days, it was no big deal if the lifeguard forgot to put the rope across the pool with the little white and blue kegs on it to mark the division between the deep and shallow ends. The day my nose got bigger, the rope was curled up, taking a nap in the pump house.
The broken-nose dive was quite a beautiful swan dive. I hit the board hard, sprung high, spread my wings, pointed my toes, threw my head back, and flew...and flew...and flew. Beyond the deep end. I entered the water and met the upward slope of the bottom of the pool.
Concrete met bone. Concrete won.
I pug-nosed the bottom of the pool. It was bad. I looked like I had been chasing parked cars.The nose bone broke, flattened, and widened. The bleeding eventually stopped. The swelling and bruises slowly disappeared. But the bone has remained the same.
I considered surgery until I found out what it was called: Rhinoplasty! Really? Is that necessary? Isn't it bad enough to have a big nose without having to be compared to a rhinoceros? If they are kind enough to come up with "liposuction" and "tummy tuck," instead of...nevermind. You get the point.
I'm comfortable with the scenter of my face...no matter how much facial real estate it occupies. Besides, it was a beautiful dive worthy of an ESPN highlight reel... If only we'd had film back then...or TV...or electricity.
That dive taught me some important lessons: 1) Feel free to dive, but remember there's a bottom. 2) Keep arms extended upon entry and hands ready to meet the bottom of the pool.
Unless...
Unless you are soul-diving into the pool of God's grace. In that case, feel free to spring high and dive straight down with no concern for the bottom. There isn't one. Same with the pool of God's love. No bottom. Dive deep!
How do I know? I've been to the cross and found grace and love immeasurable. The more you realize the amount of love and grace it took for God to send His Son to die for your sins, the easier it will be to convince you of the infinite nature of it.
It's as plain as the nose on your face...or even mine.
Perry Crisp
In my early teens, our community swimming pool had an awesome diving board. It was so limber, it would almost touch the water when you pushed off. Like most pools, this one had a deep end, a shallow end, and a slope bridging the two.
Back in those pre-frivolous lawsuit days, it was no big deal if the lifeguard forgot to put the rope across the pool with the little white and blue kegs on it to mark the division between the deep and shallow ends. The day my nose got bigger, the rope was curled up, taking a nap in the pump house.
The broken-nose dive was quite a beautiful swan dive. I hit the board hard, sprung high, spread my wings, pointed my toes, threw my head back, and flew...and flew...and flew. Beyond the deep end. I entered the water and met the upward slope of the bottom of the pool.
Concrete met bone. Concrete won.
I pug-nosed the bottom of the pool. It was bad. I looked like I had been chasing parked cars.The nose bone broke, flattened, and widened. The bleeding eventually stopped. The swelling and bruises slowly disappeared. But the bone has remained the same.
I considered surgery until I found out what it was called: Rhinoplasty! Really? Is that necessary? Isn't it bad enough to have a big nose without having to be compared to a rhinoceros? If they are kind enough to come up with "liposuction" and "tummy tuck," instead of...nevermind. You get the point.
I'm comfortable with the scenter of my face...no matter how much facial real estate it occupies. Besides, it was a beautiful dive worthy of an ESPN highlight reel... If only we'd had film back then...or TV...or electricity.
That dive taught me some important lessons: 1) Feel free to dive, but remember there's a bottom. 2) Keep arms extended upon entry and hands ready to meet the bottom of the pool.
Unless...
Unless you are soul-diving into the pool of God's grace. In that case, feel free to spring high and dive straight down with no concern for the bottom. There isn't one. Same with the pool of God's love. No bottom. Dive deep!
How do I know? I've been to the cross and found grace and love immeasurable. The more you realize the amount of love and grace it took for God to send His Son to die for your sins, the easier it will be to convince you of the infinite nature of it.
It's as plain as the nose on your face...or even mine.
Perry Crisp
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Hope Beneath the Rope
A man sat broken in the pew next to me last night after church. A stranger, yet a brother. He spilled his life out to me in raw clarity. Anger, hurt, emptiness, and regrets outlined his life.
He described himself as barely clinging to a knot at the end of his rope. Ever been there? Yeah. Me too.
He talked of how things used to be. Things used to be great. At one time he was walking with God and had even enrolled in a Bible institute with plans of becoming a preacher of the gospel.
Life took an unpredictable bounce. Bad news left a bad taste in his mouth. Like Job, this man's religious friends laid a load of blame and guilt on him. The bad taste left his mouth and settled in his attitude. His attitude toward God, the church, and life grew worse and worse.
He has spent years living on poisonous bitterness and rebellion. Every time he drove by our church, he felt drawn to go inside. Last night, the arguments against walking into a church house filled with strangers lost out to a deep desire to come home to God.
I told him to let go of the knot. He looked up at me with fear. "As long as you're holding onto that knot, you're not giving God control of your life," I said. "Let go. God will catch you before you know you're falling."
The man released his grip on the knot and landed instantly in the grip of God's grace.
After repentance came regret. He looked at me and said, "I wish I could go back to where I was...to the way I once felt."
With that statement, he had no idea how much we had in common. Regrets have a certain flavor to them that lay long on the tongue of our memory. Yet, as much as we'd like to go back and do things better or different, we can't.
We can't travel back in time. People named Garmin or Tom-Tom may adjust easily to your wrong turns, but others won't. Board games may let you go back ten spaces, but life doesn't.
There is one exception. God has allowed one moment in history to which we can all go back. The cross.
We can all go back to that moment on Calvary's hill when the Son of God hung on the cross to pay the bill for our sin, guilt, and regrets. The outstretched arms of Christ are infinite. They stretch around the world and across human history. They reach to the beginning and end of time and cover the sins of us all. Forgiveness drips from the cross.
We sat together on that pew last night equal in God's eyes. Equally sinners. Equally forgiven. Peace covered us because our pasts are covered.
It was pretty awesome to see a man who was at the end of his rope only moments before, take his first steps toward a new beginning. That's what God does...when we let Him.
I look forward to seeing my new friend Sunday and introducing him to his new family and his new future.
"We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand --- out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise...
"Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready...God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him" (Romans 5:1-2, 5-6, The Message).
He described himself as barely clinging to a knot at the end of his rope. Ever been there? Yeah. Me too.He talked of how things used to be. Things used to be great. At one time he was walking with God and had even enrolled in a Bible institute with plans of becoming a preacher of the gospel.
Life took an unpredictable bounce. Bad news left a bad taste in his mouth. Like Job, this man's religious friends laid a load of blame and guilt on him. The bad taste left his mouth and settled in his attitude. His attitude toward God, the church, and life grew worse and worse.
He has spent years living on poisonous bitterness and rebellion. Every time he drove by our church, he felt drawn to go inside. Last night, the arguments against walking into a church house filled with strangers lost out to a deep desire to come home to God.
I told him to let go of the knot. He looked up at me with fear. "As long as you're holding onto that knot, you're not giving God control of your life," I said. "Let go. God will catch you before you know you're falling."
The man released his grip on the knot and landed instantly in the grip of God's grace.
After repentance came regret. He looked at me and said, "I wish I could go back to where I was...to the way I once felt."
With that statement, he had no idea how much we had in common. Regrets have a certain flavor to them that lay long on the tongue of our memory. Yet, as much as we'd like to go back and do things better or different, we can't.
We can't travel back in time. People named Garmin or Tom-Tom may adjust easily to your wrong turns, but others won't. Board games may let you go back ten spaces, but life doesn't.
There is one exception. God has allowed one moment in history to which we can all go back. The cross.
We can all go back to that moment on Calvary's hill when the Son of God hung on the cross to pay the bill for our sin, guilt, and regrets. The outstretched arms of Christ are infinite. They stretch around the world and across human history. They reach to the beginning and end of time and cover the sins of us all. Forgiveness drips from the cross.
We sat together on that pew last night equal in God's eyes. Equally sinners. Equally forgiven. Peace covered us because our pasts are covered.
It was pretty awesome to see a man who was at the end of his rope only moments before, take his first steps toward a new beginning. That's what God does...when we let Him.
I look forward to seeing my new friend Sunday and introducing him to his new family and his new future.
"We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand --- out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise...
"Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready...God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him" (Romans 5:1-2, 5-6, The Message).
Monday, May 4, 2009
Smoking or Non?
I met someone yesterday unlike anyone else I've ever met. He is over 60 and looking for purpose in life. He believes in God, but has a relationship based on fear instead of faith.
He tries to live perfectly so that he can stand before God one day and receive commendation instead of condemnation. He is strong, determined, admirable, and impressive. But the foundation is beginning to crack.
Let's assume he has been successful at not sinning for 60 years (based on his definition of what constitutes sin). As strong as he is, and as successful as he has been in attempting the impossible, he's only one "oops" away from a forever fall.
I wrestled with two main concerns as I met with this man. The first is quite important: It doesn't matter what your definition or my definition of sin is. God decides what is sinful. This man seems to believe that sin is immoral activity only. That sin is somehow confined only to outward activities. God says sin is in the heart, the mind, the mouth, and the life. A single impure thought can strap you into the eternal southbound rocket. The Bible reveals that the greatest sin is the rejection of Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
My second concern is for this man's uphill battle to the top of Mt. Impossible. We each have a choice in this life concerning God's laws of righteousness. We can choose to fulfill the law of God on our own, living perfectly without committing a sin. Or we can choose the grace that God has extended to each of us as a gift in the form of His Son, Jesus Christ.
I encourage you to read Galatians 3:10-14 in your Bible, but I also want you to hear it from The Message:
"Anyone who tries to live by his own effort, independent of God, is doomed to failure. Scripture backs this up: 'Utterly cursed is every person who fails to carry out every detail written in the Book of the Law.'
"The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in a right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you."
God doesn't grade on a curve. He doesn't do make-up exams. There are no excused absences. It doesn't matter if your dog ate your homework. If you are going to choose to live by the law of God instead of the grace of God, then you have to score 100 every time. You can't pick and choose. Selective obedience isn't one of the selections. Sporadic obedience isn't obedience.
You have to live 100% perfect 100% of the time. One "oops" condemns you to an eternal hell.
Here is where people want to take issue with God. "How could God send people to hell?" While all the time they miss the most important truth of life ---- Jesus took your place and made 100 for you. If you will place your trust and eternity in Him, God will welcome you into His eternal home in heaven and seat you at His dining room table. If you reject that gift, you paddle your own canoe to hell.
It's your choice. Live by the law and fail or receive God's gift of grace and succeed.
I choose grace...gladly!
Perry Crisp
He tries to live perfectly so that he can stand before God one day and receive commendation instead of condemnation. He is strong, determined, admirable, and impressive. But the foundation is beginning to crack.
Let's assume he has been successful at not sinning for 60 years (based on his definition of what constitutes sin). As strong as he is, and as successful as he has been in attempting the impossible, he's only one "oops" away from a forever fall.
I wrestled with two main concerns as I met with this man. The first is quite important: It doesn't matter what your definition or my definition of sin is. God decides what is sinful. This man seems to believe that sin is immoral activity only. That sin is somehow confined only to outward activities. God says sin is in the heart, the mind, the mouth, and the life. A single impure thought can strap you into the eternal southbound rocket. The Bible reveals that the greatest sin is the rejection of Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
My second concern is for this man's uphill battle to the top of Mt. Impossible. We each have a choice in this life concerning God's laws of righteousness. We can choose to fulfill the law of God on our own, living perfectly without committing a sin. Or we can choose the grace that God has extended to each of us as a gift in the form of His Son, Jesus Christ.
I encourage you to read Galatians 3:10-14 in your Bible, but I also want you to hear it from The Message:
"Anyone who tries to live by his own effort, independent of God, is doomed to failure. Scripture backs this up: 'Utterly cursed is every person who fails to carry out every detail written in the Book of the Law.'
"The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in a right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you."
God doesn't grade on a curve. He doesn't do make-up exams. There are no excused absences. It doesn't matter if your dog ate your homework. If you are going to choose to live by the law of God instead of the grace of God, then you have to score 100 every time. You can't pick and choose. Selective obedience isn't one of the selections. Sporadic obedience isn't obedience.
You have to live 100% perfect 100% of the time. One "oops" condemns you to an eternal hell.
Here is where people want to take issue with God. "How could God send people to hell?" While all the time they miss the most important truth of life ---- Jesus took your place and made 100 for you. If you will place your trust and eternity in Him, God will welcome you into His eternal home in heaven and seat you at His dining room table. If you reject that gift, you paddle your own canoe to hell.
It's your choice. Live by the law and fail or receive God's gift of grace and succeed.
I choose grace...gladly!
Perry Crisp
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Praise the Lord and Pass the Geritol
The aged may walk slowly, but aging is a speed demon. How did I get so old so quick? I find myself facing challenges of the future today. Stuff that should happen to me in another season of life is sprouting early.
I have hair growing on my shoulders. I walk with a pedometer. How did this happen?
I'm only 46 years old (at least, I think that's right). My memory isn't what it used to be. Is it? I'm not sure about that, either.
I walked by a basketball goal the other day. That's it. That's all I did. I just walked by it and looked up. When did 10 feet get so high? That old urge to look for a ball, dribble, feel the ball leave my fingertips and swoosh through the net is gone! It went somewhere without warning. The only dribbling I do now is during a good nap.
Did I mention I have HAIR GROWING ON MY SHOULDERS? There must be steroids in my Geritol. It's bad enough I have to weed-eat inside my ears and up my nose. Now I have to mow my shoulders.
A pedometer. I walk with a pedometer. I wear a counting device on my pants and shorts to tell me how many steps I have taken per day. I'm amazed by my own ignorant surrender to the aging process. I won't be surprised if my pants are eight inches above my shoes and over my naval tomorrow.
But who can stop it? I'm not particularly fond of the alternatives. The best we can do is grow old with grace. Or as the Psalmist viewed aging: "Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age; they shall be fresh and flourishing, to declare that the Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him" (Psalm 92:13-15).
So, even if follicles flourish in unfamiliar places, what is more important is that I stay close to my God so that my soul stays fresh and vibrant. God is my rock...even when I can't get out of my rocking chair.
I need a nap.
Perry Crisp
I have hair growing on my shoulders. I walk with a pedometer. How did this happen?
I'm only 46 years old (at least, I think that's right). My memory isn't what it used to be. Is it? I'm not sure about that, either.
I walked by a basketball goal the other day. That's it. That's all I did. I just walked by it and looked up. When did 10 feet get so high? That old urge to look for a ball, dribble, feel the ball leave my fingertips and swoosh through the net is gone! It went somewhere without warning. The only dribbling I do now is during a good nap.
Did I mention I have HAIR GROWING ON MY SHOULDERS? There must be steroids in my Geritol. It's bad enough I have to weed-eat inside my ears and up my nose. Now I have to mow my shoulders.
A pedometer. I walk with a pedometer. I wear a counting device on my pants and shorts to tell me how many steps I have taken per day. I'm amazed by my own ignorant surrender to the aging process. I won't be surprised if my pants are eight inches above my shoes and over my naval tomorrow.
But who can stop it? I'm not particularly fond of the alternatives. The best we can do is grow old with grace. Or as the Psalmist viewed aging: "Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age; they shall be fresh and flourishing, to declare that the Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him" (Psalm 92:13-15).
So, even if follicles flourish in unfamiliar places, what is more important is that I stay close to my God so that my soul stays fresh and vibrant. God is my rock...even when I can't get out of my rocking chair.
I need a nap.
Perry Crisp
Monday, January 28, 2008
No Bottom - No Problem
Some things have no bottom. The stomach of a teenage boy, for example. Can I get an a-men? They can hold ten times their own body weight at one setting, ask for dessert, and then be back in the pantry an hour later, moaning, "I'm hu-u-u-u-ngry."
There seems to be no bottom to the depths people will go to get money without having to earn it. There seems to be no bottom to the ignorance of people who can't sing, yet willingly share their painful lack of talent with the whole world on television.
There would be no bottom to this devotional if I were to try to list all the bottomless immorality that spans and spams this "Christian" nation called America.
I remember an old television commercial where trash littered a highway and a Native American stood on the side of that highway with tears streaming down his face. Apply that same idea to the founders and framers of this nation standing practically anywhere in America. They wouldn't just have a few tears. They would need immediate hospital care and fast-acting anti-depressants.
Ah, but all that is bottomless is not bad! Paul writes in Romans 5 of the super abundance of God's grace. While sin seems to have no end, it in fact DOES have an end. And if you stood at the very end of sin and looked out beyond it, you would still see grace as far as your eyes of faith would allow you. Grace is bottomless!
So is love. It is one thing to be amazed by God's grace; it's another to personally experience the length and depth of God's grace and realize that the source of it all is the Father's love.
Love has no bottom. There's not a stop sign on the road of love. 1st Corinthians 13 tells us that "love never fails." That means it never stops being love. Love never stops growing long. But it never stops growing deep, either. Love never ceases to increase in volume or in time.
Paul commended the Christians at Thessalonica for the depth of their love for one another (1st Thessalonians 4:9, 10). But then he said, "As good as ya'll are doing loving one another, I just want to encourage to keep loving one another a whole bunch more" (PV - perryphrase version). There's always more love.
However much you realize God loves you, slap the weight of a thousand universes on top of that and you've just added 1/1000th of a percent of the magnitude of God's love for you.
And if that blows your mind, let me 'splain something to ya: God's love for you truly has no end, so you can go ahead and add as many 0's to the above figure as you'd like and still not define the depth of God's love.
Go ahead. Get a new pencil and start adding zeros. Don't stop for lunch, don't sleep, just keep adding zeros, keep sharpening pencils, from now till next Christmas. You'll still be 99 yards from a touchdown on a billion football fields.
Better yet -- avoid the carpal tunnel syndrome you will get from that exercise and turn those zeros into hosannas! Praise and thank the Lord that His love and grace have no bottom.
Diving Into a Bottomless Bowl of Gratitude & Joy,
Perry Crisp
There seems to be no bottom to the depths people will go to get money without having to earn it. There seems to be no bottom to the ignorance of people who can't sing, yet willingly share their painful lack of talent with the whole world on television.
There would be no bottom to this devotional if I were to try to list all the bottomless immorality that spans and spams this "Christian" nation called America.
I remember an old television commercial where trash littered a highway and a Native American stood on the side of that highway with tears streaming down his face. Apply that same idea to the founders and framers of this nation standing practically anywhere in America. They wouldn't just have a few tears. They would need immediate hospital care and fast-acting anti-depressants.
Ah, but all that is bottomless is not bad! Paul writes in Romans 5 of the super abundance of God's grace. While sin seems to have no end, it in fact DOES have an end. And if you stood at the very end of sin and looked out beyond it, you would still see grace as far as your eyes of faith would allow you. Grace is bottomless!
So is love. It is one thing to be amazed by God's grace; it's another to personally experience the length and depth of God's grace and realize that the source of it all is the Father's love.
Love has no bottom. There's not a stop sign on the road of love. 1st Corinthians 13 tells us that "love never fails." That means it never stops being love. Love never stops growing long. But it never stops growing deep, either. Love never ceases to increase in volume or in time.
Paul commended the Christians at Thessalonica for the depth of their love for one another (1st Thessalonians 4:9, 10). But then he said, "As good as ya'll are doing loving one another, I just want to encourage to keep loving one another a whole bunch more" (PV - perryphrase version). There's always more love.
However much you realize God loves you, slap the weight of a thousand universes on top of that and you've just added 1/1000th of a percent of the magnitude of God's love for you.
And if that blows your mind, let me 'splain something to ya: God's love for you truly has no end, so you can go ahead and add as many 0's to the above figure as you'd like and still not define the depth of God's love.
Go ahead. Get a new pencil and start adding zeros. Don't stop for lunch, don't sleep, just keep adding zeros, keep sharpening pencils, from now till next Christmas. You'll still be 99 yards from a touchdown on a billion football fields.
Better yet -- avoid the carpal tunnel syndrome you will get from that exercise and turn those zeros into hosannas! Praise and thank the Lord that His love and grace have no bottom.
Diving Into a Bottomless Bowl of Gratitude & Joy,
Perry Crisp
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