Identity Mapping

Season #2 of "My Pickleball Journey" launched today. If you want to see all the episodes subscribe to my YouTube channel

My Pickleball Journey: Season 2 - Episode 1 "Introducing the Season" In Season One of My Pickleball Journey I shared how life giving the sport of pickleball has been for me both from a health standpoint but also in terms of fi...

The family is the cradle of civilization.

Men, it is a hugely significant sphere of your calling. There are no talk shows debating the best Dad ever, or doing a deep dive into the top ten acts of the day of faithful husbands.

You don’t get paid for being a dad. You don’t get pats on the back for being true to your covenant with your wife.

But don’t be deceived.

The call to the family is much more significant than a pro sporting career and pays much higher dividends than a high end job.

Don’t cheat your family out of you.

They deserve your best, not just your presence but your passion.

Bring all the zest, creativity, imagination, drive, fire, love, commitment and strength to your family like you do to your 9-5 and fantasy team, and be a culture builder to the glory of God and the good of the world.

Want to know your calling? I will ask: what is your name?

Identity is not fluid. It is formed by God.

The major threads of your identity - your s*x and personality, your ethnicity and culture, your family and historic situation - are not chosen by you but chosen for you and woven by the hand of God to make you the particular, one-of-a-kind person you are.

Yes there are significant choices you make that are identity shaping. But these major threads are firm and fixed and should be received with thanks and offered with joy for the hood of the world.

My reflection today on our identity as God's chosen people

Chosen by God The deepest identity and security of Christians are found in these words: chosen by God. We know that none are worthy of God’s choice. God doesn’t choose the “good guys.” No…

You are made for interdependent, loving community: you, in your weakness receiving gladly the strength, glory and gifts of others and you, matching the needs of others with your glory, grace and gifts.

It was sad but sweet to say goodbye to our first Identity Mapping cohorts on Tuesday night. They will always have a special place in our hearts as our first IM cohorts via Zoom!

I Matter On Tuesday evening we wrapped up two Identity Mapping cohorts. We started the Identity Mapping journey in January and we traveled together reading and discussing a chapter and tool from the The Nam…

Chris Hatch shared this song "Search Me" with me a couple of weeks ago as we discussed Psalm 139. It is by Kirk Ward, the son of James Ward, who was the music director at New City St Louis and is now back in Chattanooga teach music.

Search Me, by Kirk Ward from the album Guardian Grace

Many people are offended by Christians belief in God’s judgment. They think Christians believe that they are the “good guys” and everyone else are the “bad guys” who will be judged. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The story of God’s rescue of Israel from slavery in Egypt teaches truth about God’s judgment. You may remember the story. Joseph rescues his father Jacob, his brothers and their families from a famine, providing them refuge in Egypt. They dwell in Egypt for four hundred years, multiply greatly, and, eventually, are forced into slave labor to the Egyptians. But God sends a deliverer, Moses, to set his people free. Through Moses, God sends plagues on the Egyptians. After each plague, Pharoah hardens his heart. He does not let God’s people go. God tells Moses that the tenth plague will break Pharoah’s will and bring glory to Him. “I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast” (Exodus 12:12). In ancient culture, the firstborn represented the family. By executing judgment on the firstborn, God declares every family is under his judgment due to sin. But God gives a way for his people to be delivered from their deserved judgment. Each household is to take a one-year-old male lamb without blemish, slaughter it, and sprinkle its blood on the doorposts. “For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your homes to strike you” (12:23).

You see, none of us are exempt from God’s holy judgment. Christians don’t believe they are good guys and everyone else is bad guys. We believe that before a holy God all of us are bad, sinful, deserving of God’s righteous judgment. But we also believe that there was one who was upright. The Passover lamb is a pointer to the ultimate innocent Lamb of God who was slain, Jesus Christ. On the cross, Jesus took on our sin and bore the judgment we deserved. By faith in Christ, his blood covers us from God’s judgment. Do you and your family trust in the blood of Christ or do you have another plan to escape the judgment of a holy God who someday will call every family to account? And if you have been delivered by the blood of Christ, did your heart fill with a song this morning remembering God's rescue?

God Will Provide

A story from your family’s past can define your family. It may be from the distant past, like the story of how your grandparents immigrated to America or from recent history, like your parent’s divorce and the devastation that brought. Our move to Camano Island in 1969 for Dad to be a full-time artist was defining for our family in terms of where we were from (Camano Island, WA) and what we do (art).

Genesis 22 tells the story of God’s test of Abraham. God tells Abraham to take his only son, his beloved son Isaac, to Mt. Moriah and to offer him there as a burnt sacrifice. Abraham knew that God had the right to require Isaac to bear God’s judgment for his family’s sin. And Abraham knew that God had promised to bless the world through Isaac. He believed that God could raise Isaac from the dead (Hebrews 11:19). The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard describes the anguished obedience of Abraham as fear and trembling and every parent who reads the story enters that anguish to some degree.

When they come to the place of sacrifice, Isaac said, “My Father.” “Here I am, my son.” “Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” And there alone with his son before the face of God, Abraham built the altar, put the wood, raised the knife. Then the angel of the LORD called out “Abraham, Abraham, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.” Abraham lifted up his eyes and “behold, behind him was a ram, caught in the thicket by his thorns. And Abraham…offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.” So Abraham called the name of that place, ‘The LORD will provide.’

The story of God’s holy demand, Abraham’s anguished obedience, and God’s gracious provision defined Abraham’s family from then on. God was “the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac” (Genesis 31:42, 53) and “Jehovah Jireh" the LORD will provide. (Jehovah, or Yahweh, is a translation of the Old Testament's primary, personal name for God: LORD). For the Jews, Abraham’s faith was the touchstone of faith, allegiance, and obedience to Jehovah. Until Jesus. When Jesus died on the cross, God paid the debt of sin owed by all the families of the world. Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac foreshadowed God’s ultimate sacrifice. As a Christian your heavenly Father’s sacrifice of his beloved son Jesus, IS THE DEFINING STORY of your life. If God will PROVIDE for you in this ultimate way, can’t you trust him for your daily needs?

Walk today knowing that God is Jehovah Jireh who has and will provide for you.

When I was a boy I would listen for my dad's feet on the stairs to my attic bedroom. I hoped he would remember to tuck me in and kiss me and say goodnight. I wanted to be remembered.

Deep in all of our hearts is the longing to be remembered. We want to be on the mind and in the heart of someone, somewhere. We want to be loved, valued, treasure: remembered.

Genesis 6-8 recounts the story of God's judgment of the world, and his salvation of the world through his servant Noah. In Genesis 8:1 is the turning point: "But God remembered Noah." God's remembering Noah combines the idea of faithful love and timely intervention notes Derek Kidner. Old Testament scholar Brevard Child says that "God's remembering always implies his movement toward the object of his memory."

God wasn't absent minded or too busy. Nor had he abandoned Noah in any way. No, God's remembering Noah means that he moved towards Noah in love and help.

Do you long for someone to remember you? Do you long to be treasured and cherished and thought of? You are. God asks his people, "Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb." Of course not, the answer is. "Even these may forget," the LORD God continues, "yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me" (Isaiah 49:15).

Did you live today as one who is remembered by God?

Jenny and I are super excited to be taking this journey with two cohorts beginning next Tuesday!