I’m closing down my wordpress

I have moved all my writing efforts to ONE blog, and it is not this one. If you read my blogs and would like to continue to do so, please visit:

ragamuffinwrites.blogspot.com

and “follow” off to the right, or you can rss or bookmark it.

thank you for reading

sermon audio now available for download

If you have been wanting my sermons to be downloadable, that is now a possibility.  It is available on FUSION’s website at

http://www.firstcov.org/fusion

I will continue to put them up on my xanga page though if you don’t mind sitting at your computer the entire time.

(all of this assuming that people listen to them at all)

grace and peace
- PC

Hurt for the Hurtful

God my God,

When I look at those who have hurt me or have hurt someone close to me, teach me to see where that person has been hurt. Speak to my heart that I may see the hurtful person in light of a hurting person who now has no idea that they are in need of the forgiveness and compassion I would demand in my own hurt.

Where has that person been hurt? What has hurt them so badly that they would do these things; that they would say things about me or someone close to me? What has hurt them so badly that they would live like this? Break my heart for the hurting people in my life, even if those people have hurt me or someone close to me.

Please teach me this compassion and forgiveness, that I might speak with Jesus the prayer, ‘Abba, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.’

- St. PC of the Hurtful

New Sermon Audio

I’ve put new full-length sermon audio up of the most recent series I preached through the book of Colossians. Its only a 3 part series, and its called “FULL”. You can click HERE…if you are at all interested in that.

Healing Machine

You never realize just how many people Jesus healed when you don’t read the Bible (or even just the book of Matthew or another gospel) straight through as I have been. I am stricken by how many people were constantly following Jesus around (even when he tried to find rest and solitude and they always brought all of their sick and possessed who needed to be healed. Jesus always met that need. When you read different stories here and there (as we typically do), you don’t realize how frequently Jesus was healing people.

Good Little Boy

As Christmas approached, I was always asked the same question you were asked. “Have you been a good boy?” (or girl…maybe it wasn’t the SAME question). What a question! This would have been the closest I would have known to my own Day of Atonement.

What are we talking about here? For an entire year? I mean, we only ask that each Christmas; so we must be talking since last Christmas.  Well no, I don’t suppose I have been a good boy…for an entire year. Do you know how hard it is for me to be a good boy for an entire year? Just mark it down as an impossibility.

But I always got Christmas presents anyway; regardless of my flawed year-in-review.

The Jewish people had a certain thought concerning the Messiah’s coming; that they would have to collectively honor fully the Sabbath for four straight weeks, but like normal human beings, that could not last a day. They were convinced they would have to earn and deserve the coming of a Messiah to deliver them.  But Jesus doesn’t wait until you deserve him, because you will never deserve him.  I will never deserve the freedom and forgiveness that he offers as a gift.

Jesus is not a reward for the righteous or a prize for the pious.  Jesus was and is a gift for the imperfect. He is good news for the failures who try hard by are unable to live out the perfection they wish they could.

I will never be good enough to earn his gift, but thats the good news of this story.  It is a gift for the broken and sinful; not a prize for the perfect.

Hurt Statement

When I am hurt by someone, true compassion and Godly forgiveness would ask, “What has hurt this person so much that they would react that way,” instead of “this person has hurt me and now I must react” and then seeks to love and care for that person.

My Arrogance

How arrogant am I! Turns out; quite a bit!

I am facing this realization the last few days as I take a look at an all-powerful God and how I have continually chosen to ’serve’ and relate to him. God is absolutely all-powerful, and he created me and all things and people to love and serve him. Colossians 1 tells us that we are all created by God for God.

It reminds me of the joke about the cat and dog. The dog says, “You feed me. You pet me. You give me shelter; you must be God.” The cat says, “You feed me. You pet me. You give me shelter; I must be God.” I think there is an entire book written about “Cat and Dog Theology”, but here’s the deal I am trying to learn at this moment:

How often do I treat God like I was created to be served by Him, or worse yet, that I created Him so that he would serve me?

When I take a moment to reflect on my worship, my prayer life, my faith overall, I am sobered by how arrogant I really am. I have treated God as though it is His job to be at my beckon call; as though he were created for me and not the other way around.

How much time have I spent asking that God take care of ME, bless ME, heal ME, be with and take care of MY friends and family? Now I realize we are told to ask and it will be given, seek and we will find, but is that all I have done?

Perhaps the answer likes in what happens in my heart when those requests are NOT answered as I request or expect. Do I get frustrated with God (not angry but frustrated…because thats a whole other topic)? Do I expect an explanation from God? Honestly, how many times have I asked God “why” as though His work and choices need to be checked; much less checked by ME?

Daniel 4:35 says, “All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to Him: ‘What have you done?’”

All those times I have wanted to ask God “WHY!” Man, I cannot believe how often my heart wants answers to “why” questions I may never get, and God is not obligated to answer those questions that are formed from my limited and often ridiculous perception in comparison to the perception of an all-knowing, all-powerful God who lives outside of physical space and time.

How arrogant I have become! I have forgotten who the man is, and who God is here.

Sandy Brackets

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and acts upon them they will be compared to a wise man who builds his [marriage, recovery] upon the rock.  And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and the [trials of life] burst against the [marriage, recovery] and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock.  And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act upon them, will be like a foolish man, who build his [marriage, recovery] upon the sand.  And the rain descended, and [trials of life] blew, and burst against the [marriage, recovery] and it fell, and great was its fall.” – Matthew 7:24-27

When I read this, I realize a couple things.  I can put just about anything into those brackets.  What am I trying to build in my life? A marriage? A recovery process? A family? A ministry? A portfolio? A career? A relationship or friendship? The list could go on and on, but the reality is the same; build it on the rock, on Jesus, and it will withstand the storms and trials of life that pound against it, but build it on the sand and it will inevitably fail.

So the question is what qualifies as ’sand’? If I am to avoid building anything upon it to save from all of it washing out beneath me then it is important to determine what things would be classified as “sandy” foundations out of this metaphor.

The answer is easier to see and harder to live out than it would seem.  By implication of Jesus being THE rock upon which to build, it is to the exclusion of everything else.  That means that anything but Jesus is sand.

“But what about [insert any actual 'good' thing]?”

No matter how good it may be, only Jesus is the rock; “all other ground is sinking sand.”

‘All other ground is sinking sand.’

What am I building my marriage on? My ministry? My friendships? If its not on Jesus, its sinking sand and it will not withstand the blows of life.

The storms WILL come, and life WILL happen.  Will everything I have build be washed out from under me?

lovesac

Two questions have invaded my heart lately.  One, “Where does Sac State hurt the most, and how can we practically love them in that hurt?”  As I begin a school year from a ministry perspective, I look at Sac State as a mission field readily available to me when God has placed me somewhere as a college and young adult pastor of a college and young adult group.  Sac State is practically in our back yard, and many of our students are taking classes at Sac State.  What are we doing to love people all around us?  How do I best love those who are all around me?

A wise drunk peasant once asked his equally inebriated friend, “How can you tell me you love me if you don’t know what hurts me?” There is great truth in that statement.

People who love you most know what hurts you and they meet whatever needs they are capable of meeting within that hurt.

SO as a pastor, shepherd, and disciple of Jesus to college and young adults in the Sacramento area, I have to ask myself, “Where does Sac State hurt the most? Where do college and young adults in Sac hurt the most?”

Of course asking the question is not enough, and this now means I need to seek the answers.  I need to find out what the answers to that question might be.

Once I get the answers, I then have to look at the second half of the question. How am I or can I practically love them in that hurt? What can I do within my power and capability to serve each hurting person or group or university and love them where they hurt the most?

This is the first of two questions I am asking of myself and others right now.