Prove your passion. Shut up and live.

"Prove your passion. Shut up and live." My friend Lindsay left this as part of a comment to a post I wrote nearly a year ago. Though many things have changed in my life: personal, professional, and church-wise in the last year, this simple statement still rocks me.

Prove your passion. Shut up and live.

Who cares how many people KNOW of your faith? Who cares how many people HEAR me say every week at church how much I love Jesus? Are they seeing Jesus in me, by the way I live, by the way I act, by the way I react, by all my actions, day in and day out?

Probably not. Sometimes, sure. Most times, negative. What a mixed signal we tend to send out. We (read: I) tend to show a little glimpse of what Jesus has done for me, then dive right back into the cesspool of the world. They saw a little bit of Jesus, right? That should be good. Maybe I'll show a little more next week.

So to me I say: "Mike, prove your passion. Shut up and live." Not so easy when you're accountable is it? Nope. But it's eternally worth it.

Indian Giver of me

Sometime in prayer, fessing up to your sins with God can be difficult. Not the sugar coated confession, but the call-it-out-for-what-it-is confession, where spades are spades and the gritty dirty details are painstakingly pried out. Granted, He already knows the details but I think we need to give it up ourselves.

Have you ever been honest enough with God to not only admit you have sinned, but tell Him you plan on doing it again? I have. I don't know if it was a plea for help or what, but I do know that if you want to grow closer to God, you have to give Him everything. I have to assume that everything includes even telling Him I plan on defying Him because I suck and that I hate even having that notion stir in my heart. If there was ever a time when I felt the lightning was going to strike me down, it was then.

If I want to grow in a relationship with God, I can't keep any of me to myself. This isn't exactly the problem. I offer myself to God asking to take all of me and mold me and use me. After about a minute (sometimes as much as an hour!) I snatch myself back so I can go sin some more.

I am an Indian Giver of me.

There is no good thing in me apart from God. Not a single thing.

It is an understatement to say God's grace astounds me. No lightning, just love and forgiveness. And I just don't understand it.

The Art of Forgiveness

I have been analyzing how I pray. I feel like I have been too "me" focused in my prayers, and I think that leads to a very narrow view of the power of God through prayer. One thing I noticed is when I pray, I always ask for forgiveness for each and every sin I confess. This is right and good, but the "why" of me doing this was flipped on its head, I think.

You see, Jesus died on the cross and paid for my sins (and yours, even if you don't believe it). The debt is paid, I am forgiven before the sin. I think I forget too often that I'm forgiven and find myself living in the shadow and guilt of my sins, rather than rejoicing at the grace of forgiveness I've been given.

I'm not at all saying we don't need to ask for forgiveness for our sins. We do, but I found myself asking for forgiveness as if the forgiveness itself was contingent on me asking for it right then. It's a hard thought to explain. I guess I feel like I need to keep the knowledge that I'm already forgiven in the front of my mind, and ask God to help me stop abusing this awesome grace of forgiveness.

I thought of an analogy that sort of works. The way I have been asking for forgiveness is kind of like me asking someone else if I can have my own shirt. I already have my shirt. The other person can't give my shirt, because it's already mine. It's silly. Rather, I should recognize and acknowledge that I've mistreated the shirt I've been given. I've rolled around in the mud and maybe got a mustard stain on it. I need to confess that I've mistreated my shirt, throw it in the washing machine, then ask for help to keep it clean going forward.

That may not make any sense to anyone else, but it was a pretty profound thought to me. So take from it what you will.