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On the brink of what could be the largest corporate bailout in the history of the world, I’m reminded of the 700 billion ways or so that Jesus has bailed us out. If we listed out our debt, it might sound a little like this.

1. I’m too often angry for no good reason; 2. I judge others unfairly; 3. I buy something I don’t need; 4. I’m selfish with my time; 5. Bitterness, and not forgiveness, has taken root in my heart; 6. …

I’m grateful that Jesus bailed me out of all of this. It didn’t take $700 billion and an act of congress. No, it was much more costly than than: the life of an innocent Man.  I thank God for bailing me out of a life of bondage to the debt of sin. We can live free from this debt and the shackels that bind us because the price has been paid. In Christ, your debt has been forgiven. Receive that forgiveness, extend it to others and live free. (Luke 4:18)

So, if you’ve tuned it at all to the presidential race over the past week, you’ve no doubt heard about “lipstick gate.” In short, Sarah Palin spoke a classic line in her VP acceptance speech when she quipped, “Do you know what the difference is between a pit bull and a hockey mom? LIPSTICK.”  Well, two days ago Barak Obama, when speaking of John McCain and Sarah Palin’s economic plan, said this, “you can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig.” Great line? Bad taste? Poor judgement?  Well…The Obama campaign says it was a shot at the plan, not the VP and the McCain campaign says it was a direct shot at Palin.  The truth probably lies in the middle, but anyone who studies nonverbal commuication (or human nature) can tell you Obama knew what he was about to say could be viewed as taking a shot at Palin and could get him in a little trouble. Check out Obama’s hand coming to his head and covering his eyes. His body is telling us what his mind was thinking ”oh, this is good line but I’m not sure I should say it….I can’t resist….”  In my opinion, he knew it could be construed as taking a shot at the pitbull (or pig??) in lipstick.

Lipstick or pig, I hope that we are not either. Lipstick connotates that we are trying to cover something up and make something look better than it actually is: lipstick, in this context, is code for superficial.  I don’t want to be superficial.  Pig, in this context, is code for “rotten at its core.” Not good either.

We’d all do well, politicians included, to say what we mean and mean what we say. (James 5:12) When we are transparent and honest things have a way of working out.

One of my passions in life is teaching and right now I’m in the middle of teaching Ethics in Management (at the University of Phoenix).  This course has been one of my favorites because the topic is bubbling over with engaging dialogue.  I love involving my students in conversations surrounding the diversity of ethics in American business.  When you get a group of people together from different cultures, races, religions, etc. you get lots of different ideas about what is “right” and “wrong.” For some, a mention of absolute truth is intolerant and for others near abominable…

How can one claim to know the absolute truth?  Uh, well, I guess you know where I’m going with this.  Jesus said that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life.  The definition of Truth, in this instance, is “what is true in any matter under consideration” or, and I love this, “truly, in truth, according to truth.”  You see, Jesus IS truth defined. Everything He represents is true; His nature is truth.  When we live a life after Christ, we are living the life of Truth. Very cool and very powerful. Now the challenge is to live with the Truth in humility and love for everyone…after all, He is not only Truth but Love as well.

I visited a couple of good friends in the hospital this week who were there with their babies.  One couple has yet to bring their month old home and the other is back in the hospital AGAIN, with their 3 month old.  Both of these little ones have been through more, medically speaking, in their 3 months then most will go through in their entire lives. My buddy, and the father of little 3 mo old, questioned “why?” I have the same question, but we can rest knowing that the greatest human (not the God-Man, aka, Jesus) who ever lived had doubts too.If you know the story of John the Baptist, you know that John lept in his mother’s womb when Jesus entered the room while still living inside of His mother. (Luke 1:41) Years later, John preached repentence and the coming of the Christ who John later baptized. Can you imagine baptizing Jesus? (crazy) Anyway, there John was in prison a few years later questioning whether Jesus was the One. (crazy) So, my friends, when you doubt, you are in good company.  It is okay to have doubts. It is a part of being human. Just remember, in the end, it is our faith that gets us through.

I wrote a post on Thursday about the “leadership pressure cooker.” Um, well, that was easy to write when I wasn’t actually IN the pressure cooker.  God has quite the sense of humor because on Friday at 2:30 we learned that we could not meet in our facility due to us exceeding the occupancy for the building. So, we were limited to 49 people inside this weekend, which was just enough to take care of the kids and the kid’s volunteers. The rest of us…were out on the patio, under the tents sweating and worshipping and praising God for this enormous opportunity to grow with Him!  I told everyone this weekend that He must really trust us because He has given us the task of finding a new place to call home in less than a week!  No problem…because I believe that God wants us to reach more and tell more people about Jesus. So, since God is in this He has the solution; now all we have to do is listen and obey.  Easier said than done, I know, but the greatest leaders in God’s kingdom understand it is all about hearing the voice of God and responding with fearless abandonment. As we learned this weekend, Joshua and Caleb were ready to go? Are you? I thought you were…

When I was young, my mom would use a pressure cooker to cook meals for my dad, brothers and me.  The pressure cooker is somewhat of a cross between a crock pot and microwave … cooks fast yet keeps all the good stuff in the veggies and meat that you are cooking. I thought of that cooker today as I sat in the Leadership Summit, listening to some of the world’s best leaders.  Tons of valuable information coming at me so quickly, yet God slowed it down enough to allow many nuggets to take root in my heart.

There’s not nearly enough space here to write about everything I took in today, but one impacting reminder came from Gary Haugen, the founder of the International Justice Mission.  He talked about leading through difficult times and noted that the most important trait of leading in tough situations is deep spiritual health, not things like intelligence, experience or education.  When we are healthy at the deepest level, nothing God calls us to is too messy, too hard or too impossible to overcome. Gary’s organization has liberated thousands of victims of atrocious injuctices like child prostitution, slavery and other unimaginable horrors. Gary reminded us all that God calls us to do things that seem hopeless and beyond our reach because that is when you have to rely on God.  If we are to prevail in life, our faith must run deep, our devotional life must be sincere and our strength must be in God.  Get in situations over your head and allow God to grow your faith and in that you’ll grow as a leader in His Kingdom.

The people in Israel had a choice to make.  They could listen to the voice of God and two men who reinforced what God had told them about the Promised Land, or they could listen the voices to the contrary.  Unfortunately for that generation, they chose to listen to those who doubted that God would come through on His promises and instead of entering the Land on the 11th day, they wandered for more than 14,000 days while the unbelieving generation faded away. (Deut. 1:26)

The voices that we listen to have so much impact on the life we live. We read the promises of God, we experience His goodness and faithfulness, yet we find ourselves listening to the voices that cast doubt and condemnation. Often, we just get confused in our circumstances and wonder if we ever “heard from God” in the first place.  When things look challenging and difficult, when our bank accounts aren’t full, when not as many people show up as we thought would, we doubt.  I encourage you to not measure the validity of God’s voice by your circumstances.  As I look at the Scriptures, God never promises and easy road paved with prosperity.  No, I see a God who builds the faith of His people as they walk with Him giving them enough to help them push through one more day.  If the volume of God’s voice seems to fade when the circumstances around you are bleak, then maybe it is the circumstances that are drowning out God’s voice.  I believe God is still speaking the same promise to you as loudly as before.

Last week a friend of mine, Scott Rodgers, wrote a great post on Swerve, the blog for LifeChurch.tv.  In this post, Scott reminds us that we should be about building the kingdom of God and not our own “kingdom.” That post jumped into my mind as I read Deuteronomy 9 a few days ago. 

God was reminding the Israelites that it wasn’t really their giftedness or righteousness that earned the promised land, but rather His grace. (Deut. 9:6) From the beginning of time there seems to be this tension between what is accomplished by God and what is built by human effort.  I think we can go too far either way. There are people who put themselves down to the point that they dishonor the fact that they are made in the image of God and that through Christ they are a “new creation.”  And, there are others who confuse God’s blessing for their talent.  Both miss the mark.  At the end of the day, God wants to “give us the desires of our hearts” but only when we “delight in Him.” (Psalm 37:4) That’s always the key: dying to ourselves, taking up our cross and following Him.  When we TRULY do that our passions become His and the dreams we have for our lives are His dreams for our lives.  Ultimately, we will never have the life we dream of having if it is about us.  It must always be about His fame.  As we like to say here…”what’s life all about?…..not.U!