Sorry Tim Warren...You're Wrong.

The Alternate Routes: "I've seen the future and the future's nothing new. Just another day to miss the things we used to do."

I was hit tonight with the full force of the FALSENESS of that line. That's a lot of Fs. Full Force Falseness.

WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD ANYONE EVER WANT TO GO BACK TO "THE THINGS WE USED TO DO"???

I realize that all caps make it seem like shouting. That was intentional. Like I said, I was hit with FULL FORCE tonight. There is a verse for what I was hit with tonight. And by "verse" I mean five verses.

2 Corinthians 5:12-16 (NLT)
¹² Are we commending ourselves to you again? No, we are giving you a reason to be proud of us, so you can answer those who brag about having a spectacular ministry rather than having a sincere heart. ¹³ If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit. ¹⁴ Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. ¹⁵ He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.
 ¹⁶ So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! ¹⁷ This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!"


^"If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit. Either way, Christ’s love controls us."

Observation #1. Sometimes, we ARE crazy. We do crazy things that don't make sense to our friends or our family or to culture or even to ourselves. But if Christ's love controls us, we can be sure that it's a good crazy. A divinely orchestrated kind of crazy. And like the verse says, "it is to bring glory to God." I like crazy. I like that I can bring glory to God in my unique craziness.

"Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ."

Observation #2.
I've done a lot of dumb stuff. (Ahem, by the way, there is a difference between dumb and crazy). I've done a lot of dumb stuff, and I've made a lot of dumb decisions (I still do. But that is another issue for another blog at another time). All of my bad decisions stem from a deeply ingrained selfishness. But because of "Christ, who died and was raised for [me]," that "old self"...that person with the deeply ingrained selfishness gets to die. I'm a new person. That old life is GONE. GONE FOREVER. NEVER TO COME BACK. Sometimes in my futility of thinking, I invite it back. All. Too. Often. But it will never be who I ultimately am, ever again.

I am so overwhelmed by that. I am a child of God. The God who freely gives out as many second chances as you need. The God who views me as spotless and blameless even though my behavior and actions are far from it. I am declared clean. I am declared innocent. That is how God views me. Because of the gruesome sacrifice of my beautiful Savior. [Enter tearing up here.]

"At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now!" Just think about that. Think about how Christ is viewed. Think about a perfect someone who knows your heart and soul at it's deepest level, and painfully gave up his own life to save those deeply hidden parts of you. Not because those deeply hidden parts of you are worth saving. Not because you deserve to be saved. But because that's how great He is. That's how loving He is. Then think about having a conversation with that person. What can you even say? How do you move past all the gratitude to even have a conversation? Honestly, I think I don't show enough gratitude before moving on to the conversation part. But that's the beauty of the "how differently we know him now" part of the verse! We know him on a supernatural level now! Not just a human point of view. He makes it possible for us to enter into a lifelong conversation with him!

I don't think words will conclude that paragraph sufficiently.




I've been thinking about my future tonight. Hence the beginning of the post. (My mind enjoys going off on trails of its own.) I was thinking, and talking to God about it and writing in my journal and I reached a conclusion. It's a girly conclusion, which is fitting for me, so if you're not a girl, well...maybe some guy's blog has a manly conclusion for you.

My future is like a dance. Like a beautiful dance. It has been perfectly choreographed for me. It's as if for every step and every movement, my strength and flexibility and the grace (or lack thereof) with which I move have been taken into account. It's not necessarily an easy dance, it's designed to stretch me, to teach me, and make me a better dancer. But it's not a solo dance. It's a partner dance. And my partner just so happens to be Jesus Christ. And instead of learning the choreography beforehand, I'm standing on His feet, letting Him lead me. It's quirky at times. It's unexpected most of the time. And it has a lot of uncoordinated moments. Those are the times I start to fall off his feet, or when I start to look at the people around me instead of looking into His face. When I step off His feet things get really tangled up, because I don't know the steps and I make them up. But all I really have to do is stand on Jesus, my rock, look into His face and let Him hold me in His arms and trust that he can and will lead me gracefully across the dance floor with beautiful twirls and embellishments.


Yep, that is my life. I rather like it.