Hey everybody, we’ve been sending/posting these encouragementoids for like three years now. Crazy. This is the 650th post to the website RippleEffectDisciplines.com.

The point of all of them has been to point to the person Jesus of Nazareth, or, as I like to affectionately call Him, “RJ” (see video from 9.30). To be an EPPTTP–an Empowered Powerless Pointer to the Power! If any of the writings have drawn you closer to God, or to seek Him more vigorously, or know Him more intimately, then we rejoice! Our joy is made more full and we say, “Soli Deo Gloria”–Glory to God Alone! With the seeking of God comes the reward of His Spirit’s empowerment.

Lately, I’ve been feeling it is time to ease up on the frequency, maybe do a little more in video format. And hey, it’s fall break next week, so what a good time for a break, right? Maybe send one a week, or whenever something deep hits, or perhaps even resend old ones we’ve forgotten and need reminded of.

Anyway, I thought it’d be appropriate on this eighth day of October, which marks the six year anniversary of when I last saw Stryper in concert.

[I actually have no idea what the connection could be. I just wanted an excuse to talk about Stryper.]

It was at 8 Seconds Saloon, and it was one of the most memorable and nostalgic nites of my life. My childhood friend, Todd Leavell, and I bought the VIP package, and were able to go to sound check and hang with the band for a few before the show. I forced lead singer extraordinaire Michael Sweet to hold up one of my band Virgin Vasectomy’s CDs, the one titled “Into the Gates of Hell.” Epic. It was our amazing 2007 release.

The show was insanely off the chain. Beyond words, so I will not even try to describe it here for you. Just know that they were touring on their “Murder by Pride” album which is one of my favorites, and that their closing performance of “To Hell With the Devil” that nite was good enough to birth new life.

Stryper was a huge influence on my life and walk with Jesus. I got into them in high school, and was inspired by their close walk with God while not conforming to what conservative fundamentalist Christians said we should look like or be like. (I’ll never forget our pastor at the time saying “Stryper is as wicked as the devil!” I was so turned off from fundamentalism and turned on to God by that.)

I was impressed how Stryper took the message of Jesus to the world of hard rock and heavy metal so boldly. They did not play at churches. They played at heavy metal festivals. Rough ones. They helped me to see that following God was an inner heart decision, not a mere change of appearance.

So-called “Christians” would protest their concerts, and the band would always go out to meet them, and invite them in to see the show so they could find out for themselves what it was really about. Michael Sweet and his brother/drummer Robert Sweet gave their lives to Christ as a result of a Jimmy Swaggart television program. Later, Jimmy Swaggart sent his people out to protest Stryper shows. The band was really hurt by this and could not understand it. But they still went out to greet them and invite them in. Few took them up on it.

Stryper threw Bibles out at their concerts. I have one from that 2009 show, thanks to my friend Danny Wright who caught one and gave it to me. Much love.

They are one of the most talented and underrated bands I’ve ever seen. I’ve met them a couple of times, and they are the greatest, genuine, nicest guys you could ever meet. I thank God for using them in my life as well as for countless others around the world.

I leave you with the chorus of their song “More Than A Man”–one of my favorites of theirs:

God, I will follow You because You died for me

Gave to me Your life to set me free

Anyone who asks shall receive

Jesus in your heart

It’s time for you to start

Giving God

All the glory

Psalm 16:8

I keep the Lord in mind always. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

Psalm 119:164

I will praise you seven times a day because all your regulations are just.

Is God good?

Does God want good for us?

Are His commands for the purpose of our life to not be any fun?

Or are they given in order to be our guide to the pathway of enjoying Him (and therefore, life) to a degree we did not know possible?

Does God want us to be with Him because He has a huge ego and needs constant attention and praise? (Maybe God’s love language is words of affirmation)

Or does He woo us to Himself because He knows us better than we know ourselves, and understands more than we allow ourselves to understand, that the only way we can ever be truly happy is to be with Him? Nothing heals a heart, but God alone. Like the bumper sticker says, “No Jesus. No peace. Know Jesus. Know peace.”

The enemy is effing brilliant. I am convinced more than ever that he has succeeded in duping us into believing that the “Matrix” is real. The illusion that this world we see is all there is.

We are not simply drinking the Kool-Aid, we are swimming in it. And we do not even realize it because of our deep immersion in it for so very long. Like the story of the two young fish swimming along, coming upon an older fish who asks, “How’s the water today?” The two young ones look at each other bewildered and swim on. Finally the one young fish asks the other, “What the hell is water?”

Satan successfully keeps us from God, the only source of true healing for our hearts, with an inordinate fear of legalism and rigidity. I see the reaction constantly at the mention of spending any time with God, whether it be prayer, Scripture, silence, what have you. All these sensors go off screaming “Legalism! Rigid! You’re trying to control me and make me do what you do!”

Meanwhile, you do not plug into God. You do not fill with this divine power supply and gain supernatural perspective and the ability to see clearly the Matrix we are living in. This culture of running around, distracted and consuming is such excrement and unfulfilling and all pervasive, I am starting to wonder if we can even live out a life with God while in it.

Satan is so amazing at keeping us from the only thing that can overpower His lies. I guess I’d do that too if I were Him. I’d tell my demons, “Keep people thinking it’s legalism and ridiculosity and you’re safe. They’ll search all these other endless places for the answer, and it will drown them eventually because they will move farther and farther away from YHWH Himself. They love the hunt for the next book, guru, church, support group, etc. The answer they seek is so simple that they actually think it’s complicated and rigid! Oh these humans, sometimes they make our job too easy. I wish they’d put up a little more fight sometimes and actually try to go directly to God. Then we’d have a proper challenge on our hands! Oh well, it’s still kinda fun to watch them wander around looking for what’s right in front of them.”

[Sinister laugh through fade to black}

What is the point of your entire life?

Why are you here?

Why were you made?

What are we all doing here?

If you had to boil the focus of your life right now down to a single sentence, what would it be?

[And then send it to me if you want, because I think it’d be fascinating!]

Psalm 23

You anoint my head with oil.

You know, you have to sit still in order for your head to be anointed with oil by the Lord.

Have you ever had a professional massage?

Heavenly, right?

Unless of course you keep getting up and down trying to help the masseuse. “Here, let me get that massage oil for you. I don’t want you to have to do everything.”

Ridiculous.

But this is what we do with God who wants to bless and fill us.

My cup overflows.

Unless of course I keep running around with my cup, never stopping to let it be filled.

Do you ever just sit in reverential silence before God and let Him fill you?

Let all the earth be silent before him.  Habakkuk 2:20

Have you ever tried to comb a fidgety, hyper 3 year-old’s hair?

I believe what is in our cup is for us, and the overflow (from staying still under the “faucet”) is for the world around us.

I wonder sometimes if Jesus is saying to us, “Would you sit still and be quiet?” “Can you stop reading, talking, and singing for two seconds?”

To get the most out of a massage, you need to lie down, shut up, and enjoy it.

Then you’re ready to take on the world.

Or at least your next task.

You can live out of fulness, and give from your overflow by regularly sitting still.

Or you can give out from what’s in your cup, and find yourself empty soon enough.

So Richard Rohr has these five realizations that he says must be absorbed for a young man to grow up and become an adult. A sort of initiation or rite of passage. I think these seem to be true for male or female. Man, I’m really into these top 5s this week….you know, 10 is just too much to remember.

Life Is Hard

If you can be convinced of this early in life and not waste time trying to avoid it or making it easy for yourself, you will ironically have much less useless suffering in the long run. Because we avoid the legitimate pain of being human, we bring upon ourselves much longer, meaningless, and desperate pain.

You Are Going to Die

The certainty and reality of one’s own death must be made very real. The young man must live as one who has already died “the first death” and is not protecting himself from the second. This is seen in the traditional Christian baptismal teaching: “Do you not know that you who were baptized were baptized into the dying of Christ?” (Romans 6:3). One’s death must be ritualized through trials, facing loss and one’s fear of loss, and symbolic drowning of the baptized.

You Are Not That Important

Cosmic and personal humility is of central importance for truth and happiness in this world. The initiate must be rightly situated in a world that demands respect from him, or he will have an inflated-deflated sense of himself that will need continual reassurance. This is almost the complete contrary of the post-modern “I am special” button. Littleness is nothing to be denied or disguised, but gives a basis for all community, family, and service.

You Are Not in Control

The illusion of control must be surrendered by a deep experience of one’s own powerlessness. Usually only suffering accomplishes this task, especially unjust suffering and things that one cannot change. Reality and God are in control, and we will normally not accept this until led to the limits of our own resources.

Your Life Is Not About You

This is the essential and summary experience. You must know that you are a part of something and somebody much bigger than yourself. Your life is not about you, it is about God. Henceforward, the entire human experience takes on a dramatically different character. We call it holiness.

IF THESE SEEM rather negative or even wrong to you, it might be a statement of how deeply we have been formed in the soft and individualistic ethos of the recent West. For all of its advances in technology and human rights, it has not found a way to integrate the private individual into a larger and healthy society. That larger and healthy society is precisely the work of initiation—without sacrificing the importance and dignity of the individual person.

– See more at: https://sojo.net/magazine/may-june-1998/boys-men#sthash.rUNlpjG2.dpuf

Bronnie Ware is the palliative care nurse who wrote The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. Palliative care is a kind of care for people who have serious illnesses.

Here are the top five regrets found in people who are dying:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my true feelings
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier

I don’t think this really needs anything else. It should be plenty to chew on for today.

Oh, just a quick reminder,

You are going to die someday.

Blessings!