The Jewish leaders gathered around the site of the execution. If there was ever a time to rethink or doubt their course of action this was it. Instead, they boasted with confidence, “he saved others, if he really is who he says he is, let him save himself”. This scene from the final moments of Jesus’ life has always struck me as strange. First, the leaders are admitting that he has “saved others”. “Yeah we know that he has changed the lives of all sorts of people. We’ll give you that he has healed sick people. We can’t even deny that Lazarus is alive and walking around thanks to Jesus, but we feel justified in what we are doing because he can’t save himself.”

Most everyone in our world today can relate to those Jewish leaders two millennia ago. We can’t imagine how anyone wouldn’t be primarily concerned with their own self-interest. The only reason we can imagine that someone would not look out for themselves is if they didn’t have the power to do so. So, if Jesus wasn’t saving himself, he must not have had the power to do so.

One of the most powerful disciplines Christians are called to embrace is to live a life of self-sacrifice for the good of others. It runs counter to our normal instinct. But, if love is our highest calling, then there is nothing more noble than spending ourselves for the good of others. Here’s a couple of things to remember when it comes to self-sacrifice:

1)Choose Who

There are times when sacrificing your own comforts to help others can actually make things worse. Some people may be avoiding responsibility for their lives and well-being, if that’s the case, then stepping in to solve problems for them may only exacerbate their struggles. That would not be for “their good” at all.

2)Choose When

God calls us to give our time, energy, money, etc. for the good of those in need. He also calls us to times of rest and replenishment. It’s impossible to be “on” all of the time. By stopping from time to time, we are able to create space for God to care for us. These pauses also keep us from becoming dependent on coming through for others.

Self-sacrifice doesn’t make sense apart from the life and calling of Jesus. It’s impossible to love in that way, unless you know and enjoy the love that Jesus offers to you. I hope that you’ve been able to enjoy that love, you were created for it!

The post The Least Expected first appeared on Michael Ramsey.

I lost therefore I am a loser.

I failed therefore I am a failure.

Those statements seem to make sense don’t they?  If you failed, doesn’t that make you a failure? The phrases may seem logical, but they can be incredibly destructive. Using your performance at a particular moment (I failed the test. I lost the game.) to determine your identity is not always honest.

I’ve become hopelessly addicted to the GPS app on my phone. I use it anytime I travel any distance from home. I even use it when I’m close to home just to make sure I am taking the quickest route to where I want to go. Even with GPS it’s easy to miss turns and get lost. We lose focus, turn a bit too early, or get caught up singing Taylor Swift songs to the top of our lungs and fail to hear the notification to take the next left. (not that I’ve ever done the third one).

We all take wrong turns, but that’s different from having a malfunctioning GPS. If we simply take a wrong turn, our GPS can “recalculate” a new route that will get us to where we want to go. It may take a bit longer, but we will eventually arrive at our destination.  If our GPS is broken, however, it will continue to give us wrong information, and we will never arrive at our intended location.

We all make mistakes, fail, sin, or lose at times in life.  Even though it’s not enjoyable, we can learn from our missteps. We pick ourselves up and try again. Believing that we are a loser or a failure is very different. What we believe to be true about ourselves directs every turn we make in life. Like a malfunctioning GPS, false beliefs will lead us off course.  If you believe that you are broken or a failure or unlovable, then you will live a broken life.

The message of the Bible is that God doesn’t believe that you are unlovable or irreparably broken. The Christian life is one in which we daily attempt to believe the truth that God is telling us about life and ourselves. We are loved, and God wants to repair our brokenness and then employ us to reach other broken people. It’s almost too good to believe. The question that I often return to may be one that you need to ask yourself as well: “Is my GPS broken?” Have I begun to believe things about myself that aren’t true? There are lots of voices in the world trying to make us doubt our value. We must block out those toxic voices and listen for the true voice of God speaking into our hearts.

Eugene Peterson writes, “All the waters in the ocean cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside. Nor can all the trouble in the world harm us unless it gets within us.”  You can lose your job, fail in a relationship, get passed over for a promotion, and a thousand other things in life, but none of them will crush you if are able to remember that your identity isn’t the same as your performance. Your performance will fluctuate, but what God thinks of you will never change. So, keep an eye on your inner GPS, and remember that the God of the universe is on your side.

Excerpt from “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction” by Eugene Peterson

The post When Your Inner GPS Is Broken first appeared on Michael Ramsey.

I am grateful to have had a wonderful mom, and even though she is no longer with us, her memory and impact is fresh and real every day. My mom was the most courageous person I have ever known. So, for those of you who enter this Mother’s Day without your mother, I encourage you to read the poem below by Edna St. Vincent Millay. For those with a mother still living, remind your mom how much you love her. Finally, my prayer for everyone is that you will embrace and enjoy every minute of this Mother’s Day!

The courage that my mother had by Edna St. Vincent Millay

The post Happy Mother’s Day! first appeared on Michael Ramsey.

Victor Hugo once wrote that, “The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved, loved for ourselves, or more to the point, loved in spite of ourselves.” If that is true then Christmas is our reminder that unending happiness is available to us all. This joy comes from knowing that we haven’t been left alone in our brokenness. In spite of our failings, in spite of our hurtful words, in spite of our greed, and in spite of our selfish actions, Jesus came to earth to be with us and to invite us to live forever with Him.

Humanity hungers for joy, and we waste away without it. We were created by God to crave joy in much the same way that we crave water to drink and air to breath. The greatest joy and satisfaction available to mankind comes through a relationship with God. While we may find happiness in our purchases, promotions, and possessions, those joys eventually fade. God alone is our source of unending joy.

This Christmas we also remember that sometimes the greatest joys of life emerge from our darkest moments.  Some of us find ourselves this season in a difficult financial place. Others of us are ill and battling disease. Still others of us are grieving the loss of close family or friends. While there will be losses in life that take our breath away and mountains that seem too steep to climb. God will never leave our side. As we eagerly await the day when Jesus returns and establishes complete and unending joy, God’s words echoed through the psalmist give us strength, “Sorrow may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5).

The post The Third Week of Advent first appeared on Michael Ramsey.

For many years, the nation of Israel was just a nation of people with no land attached to them. They had spent the majority of their existence as slaves in Egypt, working other people’s land for other people’s profit. After escaping Egypt and battling through a series of military victories, Israel had a home of their own.  This was a massive season of change for Israel and its leaders.  How do you function now that you have a place of your own? What rules need to be in place? How do you keep your people connected? Those are just a few of the questions that must have been running through the minds of the leaders of Israel during those early months.

One of the structures that the leaders felt that God wanted them to put into place was the establishment of cities of refuge. These cities were places where someone could flee to if they had killed someone else without meaning to. The city would provide safety for them if anyone sought to avenge the person that was killed. They were to remain there until things were sorted out, the case was heard, and a verdict was rendered. There were six of these cities mentioned in Joshua chapter 20, Kedesh, Shechem, Kiriath-arba, Bezer, Ramoth, and Golan.

The following chapter (Joshua 21) provides a seemingly unrelated account of land distribution for the Levite people. The Levites were those people charged with serving in the temple. They were the priests of Israel. They also needed a place to live in this new country, so they came to the leaders and reminded them that they had also been promised homes. The leaders agreed, and set about designating various cities for the Levites. The rest of the chapter is a dry reading of the various cities assigned to the Levites. In the midst of that list of 48 cities, six familiar names appear, Kedesh, Shechem, Kiriath-arba, Bezer, Ramoth, and Golan. All six of the cities of refuge had been assigned to the Levites. The spiritual center of the nation was also to be a place of restraint and justice who those who might not normally receive it.

The message seems clear for us today, the church should always have a place for broken and at times, destructive people. We aren’t to ignore justice, but we are to be a place of second chances, and third and fourth chances if necessary. Our nation and many others, are wrestling with the idea of if and how to receive refugees escaping from other countries. Politicians argue extremes to rally their voter bases. The healthy answer would appear to be somewhere between the extremes of “shut our doors completely”, and “allow anyone in at any time”. Time will tell where our nation will land on that spectrum. One thing that does seem clear though is that the church should be heavily involved, whether the refugees are fleeing from other countries, or they are local people whose lives have been devastated by alcohol, poverty, or abuse. The church is to be a place committed to thinking the best of others, and offering them hope.

Does this mean that the church will at times be taking advantage of by destructive people?

Almost certainly.

If we embrace God’s call to reach broken people, we will eventually by hurt by their jagged edges. As we’ve all heard before, hurting people hurt people. We don’t need to be reckless, but the dangers of reaching broken people can never exceed our courage to continue reaching.

The post Cities of Refuge first appeared on Michael Ramsey.

Several years ago, I decided to try my hand at writing for public consumption. Writing had always been a cathartic process for me, and I hoped that my thoughts might also resonate with others.  Over 300 blog posts later, I decided it was time to redefine my direction. After weeks of trial and error and brainstorming, I landed on the theme, “Made To Thrive”. This new direction came out of my own spiritual and relational life. It was also a recurring topic in the lives of people that I have known and worked with. I discovered that the thinking of most Christians falls into one of two broad categories. I have spent time in both camps over the years, and neither has been fully satisfying. The categories are as follows:

1)God wants me to succeed and prosper now.

I recently watched a message by a well-known minister on television. He draws crowds by the thousands and sells books by the millions. His message was on physical health. He said that God wanted us to have good physical health, and if you did the right things and took care of yourself, God would give you the health you desired. It was a tempting message. We all want health for ourselves and our families. We want to succeed at our careers, make more money, and send our children to better schools. The idea that we can control all of that if we do the right things is however, misleading. As the minister continued talking, I thought about a family reeling after their four year-old was diagnosed with leukemia. She hadn’t done anything wrong, or at least no more than any other four year old. If the parents had been watching this minister they would have been forced to believe that their lack of faith had left their  child vulnerable to sickness. I could see how many people when faced with that option or the choice to leave their faith altogether, often choose to abandon their faith. While God does want the best for all people, it doesn’t mean that those with faith can avoid all of life’s tragedies and challenges.

2)The big pay-off comes later.

The other major school of thought in many churches is that life is unpredictable and can sometimes be hard. So, don’t worry about life here on earth. It is what it is.  God’s plan is to give you all of the good stuff later on, namely in heaven. In the meantime, we should just endure the best we can. There are aspects of truth in this view as well, but again it falls short in some key places. If this life doesn’t matter, why are we here?  Is there more to life than simply gritting our teeth and sticking it out? Isn’t the earth more than just heaven’s waiting room?

A third option: we were made to thrive.

Thriving accepts that life will bring both incredible highs and painful lows. We have some control over the direction of our lives, but there are circumstances like disease, tornadoes, relationship betrayals, and thousands of other things that are beyond our ability to control. We are able to thrive however, when we embrace all of life. The ups and downs, the celebrations and the grief. We embrace our newborn children and laugh, we gather at funerals and cry. We celebrate our promotion at work, and fight to begin again when we lose our job.  We weren’t made to simply endure life. We are to embrace it for all it’s worth, because we believe that God is somehow present in every moment of life.

First century church planter Paul, captured the heart of what it means to thrive when he wrote, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.” (Philippians 4: 11-12)  Thriving accepts that life isn’t all that it was meant to be, but at the same time God is at work making all things new. The most unexpected and life-altering truth of all is that God wants us to join him in that work. As I thought about a new direction for the blog, I realized that thriving is what I’ve always wanted to do in life, and everything that I’ve tried to teach others. So, as we continue forward together, I hope that the posts you find at michaelramsey.org will encourage you to embrace life for all it is, and to seek to find God is all of it’s moments. Never forget that you were made for something more, you were made to thrive.

The post Why “Made To Thrive”? first appeared on Michael Ramsey.

The post The One Question We All Must Face first appeared on Michael Ramsey.