When Ole Miss received an invitation to the College World Series last spring Rebel fans everywhere started snatching up tickets, booking hotel rooms. and making travel plans to Omaha, Nebraska. Lives, vacations and work schedules were completely rearranged to witness the historic moment in Ole Miss sports history. More than 40 years had elapsed since the last time the Rebels had been to the College World Series, and in that time there had been the heartbreak of near misses and close calls for some really good teams that just couldn't get the wins necessary to finally punch the ticket. The 2014 CWS berth had been so long awaited, so longed for, and was such good news that Ole Miss fans leaped at the chance to drive more than 800 miles from Mississippi to Omaha to watch their team. Anytime a Mississippian is excited about driving to Omaha you know something really good must be happening. Good things elicit a response. Ole Miss making the CWS was really good news, and Rebel fans responded in droves.
And that's what has happened to me lately.
No, I didn't win a sporting event, and I'm not planning a trip across the country for anything. Instead, I've discovered some really, really good news.
I discovered the far reaches of God's grace.
I'm not a new convert. Far from it. Like most (or a majority - this is the bible belt after all) of you I've believed in Jesus and the good news of the gospel for most of my life. But recently it has hit me afresh and like never before. And this time the news is just too good not to respond. If there was a 1-800 number I could dial to buy a ticket to it, I'd be on the phone or hitting refresh on my browser until I could give it my credit card number.
But that's not the way God's grace works. Not at all, actually.
God's grace works more like this:
A few weeks ago I was standing in my kitchen on a typical Friday night surrounded by my wife and children. The kids were hungry and demanding attention. My wife was groggy from a well-deserved Friday afternoon nap (she works full-time just like me, but had taken the day off to spend with the kids). I was cranky from a full day at the office and a long afternoon commute. It was one of those evenings every family probably has. None of us was our best self. And there in that kitchen as the forces of selfishness collided from every direction I did something I've done too many times before - I lost my temper and said things I shouldn't have said. The words were angry and from a sinful heart. A heart that wasn't happy things weren't going its way lashed out. But that isn't the worst part. The worst part is that it was an old sin repeated. That Friday night wasn't the first time I've said sinful things in sinful anger, and sadly it probably won't be the last.
For some reason on that Friday night it hit me like never before how deep my sin problem is. No matter how much time I spend in God's word, go to church or hang out with people that do, on a Friday night when I'm feeling cranky and everything isn't all peaches I'm just as likely to sin as ever before. I am a sinner.
Don't get me wrong, I sin all the time. I wish I didn't, but it's true. I do. But on that Friday night God showed me just how bad my predicament really is. He opened my eyes to my condition apart from him. I'm bad, and this side of heaven I always will be.
The Bible says it better (or worse, depending on your perspective).
"For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing." (Romans 7:18,19)
This is a terrible predicament in which to find oneself, but it's true.
This is a terrible predicament in which to find oneself, but it's true.
"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned - every one - to his own way;" (Isaiah 53:6)
The gravity of my sin is real, and it was never more real than it was on that Friday night with my family. I never want to yell at my wife and kids, but there I was, yelling. As I mourned my sin and stewed in my self-pity (Will I ever stop sinning?!) - the Holy Spirit reminded me through God's word that though my sin is great, the blood of Jesus is greater.
"[H]e was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5)
I was correct that the father and husband standing in that kitchen was, is and always will be a sinner, but, thankfully and mercifully, God had reminded me about the best but in the history of buts.
"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. " (Ephesians 2:1)
"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. " (Ephesians 2:1)
"In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making know to us the mystery of his will...to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth." (Ephesians 1:7 & 10)
As I dealt with my condition and these truths about what God did for us in Jesus, for the first time in my life, I realized how amazing God's grace really is. My sins don't surprise God. He knew about them long beforehand. They are the reason he sent his son. That grumpy Friday night dad is forgiven. I was dead, but God made me alive.
Thanks to the work of Jesus on that cross, God has pronounced me "Not Guilty" even though I know I am very guilty.
"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1)
Jesus paid for my sin. Even the same old sins that I commit over and over again and it seems like I'll never beat though I will keep trying. Jesus paid for the sins I committed yesterday, today and the ones I will commit tomorrow.
Thanks to Jesus, I'm perfectly loved by God in spite of all of that. He loves me more than an earthly father loves a son. That much!
Considering all the things I've done it almost sounds too good to be true, but it's what the Bible says (read the 1st chapter of Ephesians).
Have you ever experienced something or heard about something that you thought was too good to be true? If you have you'll probably understand that feeling of wanting to hear the news over and over again, dwell on it and bask in it. That's where I'm living lately - in the land of thinking God's word is almost (almost) too good to be true.
It's turned my world upside down. It really has. There is so much joy to be found in the work of God through Christ that it's hard to take my eyes off of it to look elsewhere at the moment.
Right now I want everything I do to be done in the light of what he did, and that includes this blog. Lately, I have struggled with what that means this blog should look like. My thoughts have been all over the place. Should I quit the blog? Should I only write about the gospel? Should I never write about the Gospel and only write about Ole Miss? I've considered it all, and I've prayed that God will give me direction.
It's funny how God works because I didn't find the answer to this prayer in the Bible or from my pastor...all the normal places one might look.
Instead, I think I found it in Hugh Freeze (funny only because it's soooo ironic). As I was struggling with what comes next Freeze spoke at Pinelake Church in Flowood. I watched the video from his message that day. Freeze told the large congregation that he had prayed years ago that God would give him a platform, and Freeze also prayed that that whatever platform God gave him - whether its girls basketball, high school football, NAIA or SEC - that God would use Freeze to spread the message of the gospel. And so here he was years later at Pinelake using the platform God gave him.
Unless he has everybody completely fooled, here is a man in Hugh Freeze who surely must understand what it feels like to understand that the gospel is more important than anything else, that it's almost too good to be true, and that it changes everything.
I could almost hear God talking to me saying my "struggle" about what to do with this little blog really isn't that complicated.
To use Freeze's words, my "It" is to follow Jesus. And that just means my It is going to show up in my life and this blog more than it once did.
Ole Miss is fun. OMRebelNation.com is a part-time vocation. Jesus is Everything.
I hope you have or will experience him like I have lately. He is better than anything else. Far better.