The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Raised With Christ

April 25, 2011 / / 0 Comments

“All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.” ~Romans 6:3-5

Dear Valerie,

It was my great and special honor to baptize you yesterday into the sin-forgiving and salvation-bestowing blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Your baptism, your open heart, and your confessing spirit were an inspiration to all of us who participated in your new birth. It was an especially proud moment for your mom and me.

You have been tremendously blessed by our God. He has favored you, Valerie, with a gentle and generous disposition that considers the needs of others and openly shares kindness and compassion. You are a beautiful and brilliant young lady with an endless amount of potential. The possibilities you possess within you to do good are staggering. You’re so talented, so hilarious, so full of life.

Your mom and I have worked very hard to pass along to you and your sisters our faith in our risen Christ. We have tried to live every day as models of what it looks like to practice what we preach. We’ve tried to be consistent in living out the Gospel in our every interactions within our family and within the world God has given us. Your decision to give yourself wholly to Jesus as the ultimate and eternal Lord of your life is a moment of great satisfaction for us; I won’t lie. It means everything.

“You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.” ~Galatians 3:26-29

Be reminded, Valerie, that when you were baptized you put to death that old girl of sin. You buried that girl. You killed her. And when you came up out of the water you were a brand new creature. God has created in you a brand new person, full of his Holy Spirit, to experience everything in a brand new way. You now share in the Resurrection of Jesus. Death has nothing on you now. And neither does sin.

You have renounced the ways of the devil. You have rejected the patterns of this world. You have said ‘no’ to temptation and evil desires that would pull you away from your God. You have now personally and publically embraced salvation from God in Christ. You have put your trust, not in horses and chariots, not in your own talents and abilities, not in your own works and good deeds, but in the Father who promises to save you. Your faith is in him. You have placed yourself in his gracious and loving arms. And he will deliver. Our God is faithful, Valerie. And very, very good.

“Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God… For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” ~Colossians 3:1-4

God has incredibly huge things in store for you, girl. He is going to work in you to transform you more and more into the perfect image of his holy Son. And he’s going to work through you to bless the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands, of people to his eternal glory and praise. And I’m going to be right there in a front row seat, waving your flags and cheering you on the whole way.

You are my daughter in whom I am well pleased.

May you look back often on your baptism, Val, and remember what God has created in you. And may you walk with him always, faithful to the end.

I love you,

Dad

Sunday’s Coming

April 22, 2011 / / 0 Comments

The great biblical scholar and writer N. T. Wright asks, “Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus if we don’t throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live the Resurrection if we don’t do it exuberantly in our liturgies? Is it any wonder the world doesn’t take much notice if Easter is celebrated as simply the one-day happy ending tacked on to forty days of fasting and gloom?”

Yes, the Resurrection of Christ is our greatest event. Yes, Easter is the Church’s greatest day.

Take Christmas away and, in biblical terms, you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke. That’s it. Take Easter away and you don’t have a New Testament. You don’t have Christianity. As Paul says, our preaching is worthless, we are still in our sins, and we are to be pitied beyond all men.

We can’t allow Easter bunnies and eggs and dresses and bonnets (does anybody wear Easter bonnets anymore?) or furniture sales or car lot closeouts to distract us or blow us off course. Easter Sunday is our greatest Sunday. And we should put the flags out.

We should rejoice in our Lord’s Resurrection. We should celebrate his current and forever reign at the right hand of the Father. We should declare the gracious gift of eternal life that comes to all those who share in Christ’s Resurrection. And we should live — man, we should live!! — into the Resurrection, through the Resurrection, because of the Resurrection!

It’s Friday. But Sunday’s comin’!

Grace and Peace,

Allan

After Lent

April 21, 2011 / / 0 Comments

God’s Church has always observed a period of fasting and prayer in preparation for the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection at Easter. Christian writings from the early third century refer to the mandatory, though not uniform, participation in these spiritual disciplines and place the origins of the practice back to “our forefathers.” Eusebius and others refer to Lent in their fourth century writings. The church councils of that age point to Lent as being established by the Apostles.

The practice of Lent itself cannot be found in the Bible, although Holy Scripture does command and assume regular times of fasting and prayer. So, I can honestly affirm Lent as a noble and faithful and Christian thing to do. Absolutely. No doubt. Some of you reading this blog annually observe Lent. You give up a bad habit, put away a certain vice, abstain from a particular pleasure in order to bring your mind and body into a fuller communion with our Lord.

Praise God! That’s fantastic!

But if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter is the time to take things up.

If Calvary means putting to death things in your life that need killing off so you can flourish as a Christian and as a God-created human being in his image, then Easter should mean planting and watering and training up new things in your life so you can grow in your sacred relationships with God and man. Yes, you have to weed the garden from time to time. We all do. Sometimes that ground cover or those stumps need some serious digging to be eliminated. That’s Lent. But you don’t want to just turn your garden into a neat little bed of blank dirt. Easter is the time to sow new seeds and plant a few bulbs. Resurrection Day is the time to start something new, something that will blossom and fill your world with color and perfume and righteous fruit.

As we celebrate Easter together this Sunday, why don’t you take up something new? Tackle a new task. Enter into a new venture. Start something, commit to something wholesome and fruitful and outgoing and self-giving. You may only be able to do it for 40-days, just like you may only be able to give up Dr Pepper and Little Debbies for the six weeks of Lent. But if you really make a start on it, it might give you a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new potentials you never dreamed of.

It might help you wake up in a whole new way. And that’s what Easter is all about.

Peace,

Allan

Warrior Dash Pictures

April 19, 2011 / / 0 Comments

That’s not a clever title, I know. But that’s really all this post is: a bunch of pictures from our Saturday running of the Warrior Dash up in Roanoke. We had a blast. We enjoyed  a great sense of accomplishment. Other than scraped knees and sore legs, nobody got hurt. And we’ve got lots and lots of hilarious stories. I highly recommend Warrior Dash.

(A few months ago, things got weird with my blog. Some of the format changed and a lot of the ways I write and edit and insert pictures and articles changed. I haven’t been happy with it. I’m not at all comfortable with it. But I have no idea how to change any of it. This post looks horrible. And I don’t know how to fix it. I didn’t use to have any of these problems. Please bear with me. After today, I’m determined to get this fixed.)

   

This is the Legacy group that ran together in the 10:00 am wave Saturday morning. There were others of us that ran at 1:30 that afternoon and 6:00 that evening. But this was our little band of warriors. Ready for the challenge!

    

            

After wading through waist-deep water, climbing cargo net walls, leaping cars and trucks, scaling stacks of hay bales, and jumping over fire, we made it to the final obstacle: a giant pit of slimy mud. We had to get low in order to clear the barbed wire that ran over the mud. Naturally, this is where the crowds of spectators were gathered and where most of the best pictures were taken.

        

   

    

The most deflating, demoralizing part of the day was crossing the finish line, getting my medal of spectacular achievement, and seeing Hudson up on the banks, already showered and clean and dry and not a hair out of place. What a punk! Next year, Hudson. I’m keeping up with you next year.

    

I think the Warrior Dash is primarily targeted to a college-aged demographic that drinks more than just Diet Dr Pepper. But we had an absolute blast together. Carl Ball took some great pictures and some video and put together a funny little film we watched together at a BBQ place Saturday night. In just a five-hour time span the stories had been embellished and the details of the day exaggerated so that they were barely recognizable. Carrie-Anne’s going to run it with us next year. Carley’s chomping at the bit to turn 14 so she can enter. And I think our Legacy numbers may double or triple. Thanks to Greg Hardman for turning us on to Warrior Dash. Greg, if you find one in the fall, we’re in!

Peace,

Allan

Following Jesus to the Cross

April 15, 2011 / / 0 Comments

We don’t ever come to the cross of Christ to worship his death or to remember the grisly details of that day. We come to the cross — we’re actually drawn to the cross — to see what it looks like for me to die. What is the meaning of my daily dying to myself and dying for Christ? And dying with Christ? What does it look like? How do I do it? And what does it really mean?

People say Jesus died so I don’t have to. No, that’s not right. Jesus died to show us how to.

As holy children of God and disciples of his Christ, we die every day. We participate every day in the eternal dimensions of Jesus’ death.

“I have been crucified with Christ…” ~Galatians 2:20

“I die every day — I mean that, brothers! ~1 Corinthians 15:31

“You died, and your life is now hidden with Christ.” ~Colossians 3:3

Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” We are called to participate in the death of Jesus. We don’t just stand around and ask questions about the death of Christ. We don’t just talk about it and marvel about it. We live it. The death of Jesus shapes everything about the way we live, how we believe and love, why we do what we do.

If we’re going to follow Jesus as his subjects — and we are! — then we’re going to follow him into the pain and darkness of Calvary where he faithfully and fully submitted to our Father’s will and gave his very life for the sake of the world.

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Tomorrow is Warrior Dash. And I’m not quite ready.

Warrior Dash is a 5K obstacle course highlighted by runs through waist-deep muddy water, climbs over cargo nets and 20-foot hay bales, crawls under barbed wire and through dirty ditches, and jumps over junk cars and pits of fire.

There are runs like this all over the place. Some of them are called Mud Runs. Some are called Jail Breaks. This Warrior Dash is held every year in Roanoke, just down the street from the Texas Motor Speedway. I’d never heard of this, or any other organized obstacle event, until last year when Greg Hardman and his daughter, Emily, ran it together with some of her college friends. His stories and his pictures were truly inspiring. I even used their experience to illustrate a sermon here last spring.

And several of us caught the fever.

Valerie and I made plans to start training in October. I was going to start eating right. I was going to start running more. (By more, I mean just start running. Period.) I was going to lose 15-pounds. I was going to lift weights and really be ready for this thing in April.

I’m not ready.

None of those things happened. Valerie and I have run together at the Northridge Middle School track a total of five times since the middle of February. We did two-and-a-half miles last night. We’re going to do three miles this evening.

We’re not ready. But we’re very much looking forward to it. Valerie has always been my little adventurer. She’s excited to be doing something so outrageous with her dad. And this will be something I’ll treasure with her forever.

There are at least a dozen of us from Legacy running the Warrior Dash in the morning: John & Suzanne, Bruce & Cathy, Mike & Lisa, Keith & Beth, Josh (who promises to stay right with me), Jason, Margaret, David and, from what I understand, a whole slew of our younger marrieds.

My goal is to finish in one hour or less. And to not have to be carried out in a stretcher.

Peace,

Allan

Good For The Soul

April 14, 2011 / / 0 Comments

G. K. Chesterton was once asked by a newspaper in London what was wrong with the world. He responded to the request with this short letter:

Dear Editor,                                                                 
What’s wrong with the world, you ask?
I am.
Cordially yours,
G. K. Chesterton

Humility and confession are the very first steps to genuinely following Jesus. Recognizing our place, admitting our shortcomings, owning up to our own faults is what allows our God to transform us into the perfect image of his holy Son.

What’s wrong with my family? I am. What’s wrong with my neighborhood? I am. What’s wrong with my church?

I am.

This kind of humility and confession allows us to throw away the guilt and frees us to live fully into the forgiveness and grace of God. It tears down the barriers. It obliterates the walls. It puts all of us together on the same broken plane where we rely not on ourselves, but on our Sovereign Lord.

There’s nothing wrong with your family or your neighborhood or your church that won’t get a whole lot better with some humility and confession. It opens us up and makes us available for God to use us as part of his great solution.

Peace,

Allan

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