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Job’s “One Great Story”

I listened to a wonderful podcast called Earbender by my friend Alexi Muzik yesterday where Rozette, a successful Pop Vocal Coach on Tiktok and InstaGram, described at the end of the interview her “one great story”. It was such an inspiring story full of doors flinging open unexpectedly and other people playing a crucial part in her growth and development as an artist. I commented that “I love when doors open for sweet people by the generosity of others around them — not only by their own talent. It helps build a humility that is so necessary in order to even begin trying to handle true success or fame.”

Success, fame and honor has another side to it that can be just as devastating to a life as loss. Just look at the number of lives destroyed by “easy come easy go” riches, success and fame. Look at the number of sports stars who can thrive on the field of competition, but whose personal lives are destroyed by what grows out of their success. Look at the number of celebrities who find themselves even more lonely, trapped, isolated and depressed even while their fame has them “on to of the world”.

But imagine the crash, to fall from the top of a building versus from the top of a few steps!

The contrast in the chapters of Job 27 and Job 28 should be humbling to any of us who have experienced success, favor, honor or fame in our lives. Chapter 27 talks about how it feels to live a life kissed by the favor of the Lord. While chapter 28 talks about a life darkened by strife, grief and depression.

Those who think that being religious and doing religious things guarantees them only success, honor and fame in this life are utter fools. And many only see religious traditions, theology and dogma as a way of improving their own standing — a narcissistic means of self worship (with God as a supporting cast in their own hero story). This is not worship or faith, but is hypocrisy, self righteousness, sin.

Even those who have truly humbled themselves before God, who know Him and walk with Him, and who are anointed by the Holy Spirit of the Living God are not immune to suffering, grief, loss, oppression, and trials in this life. In fact, Jesus tells the believer to redirect these things.

This verse in chapter 28 sticks out for me:

I live in terror now. My honor has blown away in the wind, and my prosperity has vanished like a cloud.
Job 30:15 NLT

This verse isn’t a statement from before Job ever walked in the favor of God. It isn’t like all was bad before Job made a decision for God and then all was wonderful afterwards — just like God wasn’t only angry and vengeful before the cross and isn’t only peace love and happiness after the cross — and just like our lives aren’t going to be all health, wealth and prosperity once we start “giving money to the preacher man”.

No doubt, there is so much that is gained in a life lived drawing close to the Lord. And the favor and blessing of the Lord is very real. But there is also a cost, and that cost is wonderful. Because that cost refutes the enemies claims that we love God only because He is good to us.

God is indeed very good to us. But only loving or hating Him for whether He is good or bad to us is very shallow, and isn’t about Him but is about us. Going through a season where we are hurting and God doesn’t “fix it” to what we want just because we pray over and over for it in various ways as we try to make sense of things like sickness, suffering, injustice, etc. — it stretches our faith to break through the ground and display the sapling to the world around us of a very real and peculiar faith. And it happens again when a new layer of bark is added. And again when a new branch springs forth. And again when bloom and fruit come forth.

We don’t have to pretend that everything is good if it isn’t. We don’t have to stick it up and take it until we make it. We don’t have to be in the height of our one greatest story to be content and at peace. We don’t even have to be strong.

Wherever we are today, I hope that humility will accompany us through the mountaintops and that peace will accompany us through the valley. And that even in our darkest and weakest hour, we might speak our piece, cry out to God, and then be quiet — for the glory of God. Amen.

Check out Ear Bender on Amazon Music.
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/e75409be-87d9-45e1-9206-9b6b3fa877be/ear-bender?ref=dm_sh_o2Qic3UuUfK2BbrX5h6Pp5LLI

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No Agenda, One Motive

I have a friend, Michael Mcleymore, who runs an amazing rehab/ recovery program in Union County, South Carolina, called The Prodigal’s Home. He recently had another inspiring post that he shared from a moment in the life of their program. At the end, he closed with:

“No agenda, one motive: be the love of Jesus! “

One of the ugliest things about people who are involved in “good things” is when we find there is an hidden agenda. When we find out that someone has laid out a chess match type of manipulation/transaction of a situation where they give the impression that they are being good, generous, charitable, etc. — but it turns out they were actually just doing it for themselves.

Even religious people who think that doing more good deeds in this life will earn them a greater reward somehow — may actually be working under a hidden agenda to benefit themselves, rather than truly being “motivated to love and serve others”.

It is the motive that matters.

As a Christian, we are to be motivated by the love of Jesus for us, that in turn motivates us to love others. This motivation that rises up out of faith that He loved us first — it is truly the foundation for the disciple of Christ.

If our theology, traditions, dogma and ceremonies don’t all grow from this root — from this motive — they are fruit from the seed of a poisonous tree — they are about the self-righteous measuring and comparing of our own good and evil — rather than a being drawn close to the Lord to walk as He walks.

No agenda, one motive: Be the love of Jesus!

Find out more about Michael’s ministry here: https://www.facebook.com/421873688267793/

Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.
Romans 12:9‭-‬10 NLT

People may be pure in their own eyes, but the Lord examines their motives.
Proverbs 16:2 NLT

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.”
Jeremiah 17:9‭-‬10 NLT

For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.
Hebrews 4:12‭-‬13 NLT

Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored. But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s! So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him! * * *
Romans 8:5‭-‬17 MSG

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SONG: “Jireh” with Sarah Ratchford

You aren’t a lost cause. You haven’t let God down. You haven’t surprised Him with your faults and failures — or with your proudest moments.

My wife and I still laugh — no, we howl — at inappropriate jokes and memes.

We even still have a playlist called “Mommy and Daddy Jamz” with our favorite strip club songs from back in the day like ‘Trillville – Some Cut’, ‘Juvenile – Slow Motion’, ‘Trick Daddy – Sugar’, Chingy – Right Thurr’, ‘Ying Yang Twins – Wait’, ‘Lil Wayne -Lollipops, ‘Petey Pablo – Freak a leak’, ‘Ginuwine – Pony’ and so many more songs that we only play when my 11 year old daughter isn’t around.

For background, if you wanted to look for dirt on me, you wouldn’t have to dig very far. If you’ve ever heard embarrassing, inappropriate, lewd and explicit things about me on the Internet or in crazy stories — they are probably true (and maybe even tamed down for public consumption).

I’m not trying to compete for who has been the wildest. And all of that doesn’t embarrass me or cause me shame now that I love Jesus and I love for my life to be one of worship.

I’m not trying to “hide it” or “cancel it”, because it’s part of my story. I realize that I might not fit someone’s cookie cutter picture of “what a Christian should look like” — and if I said “I’m sorry for disappointing you” it would clearly need a hashtag for sarcasm. Lol.

My point is that my restored relationship with God is not predicated upon my own “goodness”. I’m bought and paid for, washed clean by the Blood of the Lamb, and anointed by the Holy Spirit of the Living God to tell you that He has very Good News FOR YOU!

I love these lyrics from the song Jireh by Elevation Worship:

“I’ll never be more loved than I am right now
Wasn’t holding You up
So there’s nothing I can do to let You down
It doesn’t take a trophy to make You proud
I’ll never be more loved than I am right now”

Yes, there is a lot of that “old life” that gets “left behind” now that we are walking with the Lord. When I go into the cell blocks, and the strip clubs, and the drug/whore houses now, it is for a different reason. I’m not there to judge, condemn, abuse — or even for a transaction. I’m there as a friend, as an encouragement, as someone who will listen with love, as someone who will offer counseling, help, prayer if it is wanted.

We need to love one another well. We need to bring love to those who might be hurting, helpless, alone, forgotten, taken advantage of, and beaten up by the traps of this life.

It’s not my job to scare anyone out of hell. If you hear that, you’re not listening to me.

Knowing and walking with Jesus is so much better than my old life, and it has all been gain, and all for my good — not sacrifice. Even when life’s challenges come now, I can find peace in the middle of the storm. I don’t have to pretend to be perfect or strong.

I just feel like someone out there who is afraid of getting hurt by “religion” really needs to hear that!

God bless!