When Lazurus was dead in the tomb, the Jewish priests and religious right were saddened by his death but content to let him remain that way. Lazarus was one of them…a Jew who followed the rules, didn’t rock the boat and shoulda just stayed dead. Been a nice clean ending…
Enter Jesus, full of compassion and full of LIFE ready to speak to the death in that tomb and bang! we gotta problem.
The nice clean ending got a bit unconventional, the insider (Lazarus) became an outsider with Jesus and now the religious folk want to kill them both.
This still plays out today. It’d be a lot cleaner just to leave our religion “dead” and unimpactful. No rockin the boat, no trying to speak LIFE into the world….it’s always been this way, why change?
Enter in a generation that says “hey, since this whole thing is aboit dead, how bout we use some unconventional methods? Maybe see if we can raise this world to life.” Yup…get ready to tick off some Pharises. You’re messin with their tomb…

Game on…getabsorbed…n

Coldplay’s latest album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends was supposedly inspired by a painting commemorating the July Revolution of 1830.  Liberty Leading the People by Eugene DelaCroix is a striking image of sword slinging men, pistol waving boys and a bare chested woman leading the charge over a pile of dead soldiers.  Revolution is costly, bloody and filled with passion.  There’s something in this song and in this painting that awakens a feeling deep in my soul.  What about you?

I’ve been questioning my “cause” as of late.  Why do i exist and what affect will it have in the world?  The WHY in my life has to drive the WHAT.  There is a “call to arms;” a call to change the face of the planet for the cause of Christ that I can’t deny.    Making Christ accesable to humanity is the call.

Ambiguity was safe…clarity isn’t all that comfortable.  There is a fire that if shut up in my bones for much longer will eventually burn me up.  The love of Christ compels me, pulls me into His purposes, His cause, His Kingdom.  Am I willing to sacrifice comfort in the face of a mounting call to revolution?  Am I willing to turn my back upon the current structures, the current systems and the institution of religion and towards that which beckons me on?  Love will make you do some risky things.  To avoid the risk and stay within the pain of the present is becoming simply unbearable.  The call is irrevocable.  It’s now simply a matter of obedience…

I WILL stand before a King one day who left His throne to save the world.  Has my life been consumed by His Kingdom…or filled with guarding my own?…getabsorbed…n

I’m sitting at yet another airport terminal, staring out the window at a flurry of activity. Planes arrive and depart at a dizzying pace, while workers frantically scurry about to empty fill and empty again these massive metal tubes. All of this activity and scheduling. All of this focused inventive genius, all of this creativity…for what? Simple commerce? Could it be that flight serves a much higher cause than simple business transactions? Is it possible that we, in our quest for “more” have missed some of the eternal reasonings behind our modern day miracles such as air-travel? If God gave us the abilities there has to be a greater cause. Flight links us globally, unifies families in a few short hours, speeds immediate relief to devestated areas and gives us no excuse for not meeting the needs of the world. I pray my children take full advantage of flight, traversing the globe with the message of hope in Jesus Christ. Fullfill the call…you can…getabsorbed…n