My Brother's HOA is Hilarious.

So a little while ago I was at my brother’s beautiful home. We had just set up a new basketball hoop for his kids, so as well-mannered and responsible fathers… is that laughter… I am taking names. We of course had a dunk contest… crushed it. Afterwards we of course had the 3-point competition and this is where our adventure takes, A TURN. I lob a shot towards the hoop it bounced straight up, and with the slowest bounce I have ever seen. The bounce was so slow I literally had time to say, “there is no way that breaks the window, Right?” the ball lightly taps the front window of my brothers how and Shatters it like the dreams of an Iowa girl getting off the bus in Hollywood hoping to be a movie star. SHATTERED. As we stood their wide eyed, and for me at least, embarrassed. We realized well the windows were single pain 30 years old and let in more heat than the Broncos offensive line. So my brother started the process of replacing his front windows. He quickly realized he had to deal with the three scariest letters in home repair. H-O-A. That right, before purchasing his new windows, he had to get the color, shape, size, and company approved by the.. H-O-A. You see the home owners association is an organization meant to keep a neighborhood on the same footing. Keeping yards clean, houses visually appeasing, and the most anal and nitpicky amongst the community busy for 2 Tuesdays every month. Really HOA’s are there to make a community play by the same rules. So that one house doesn’t destroy the esthetic or code the community agrees to.

This has many upsides. Great looking homes, high property values, heck some even have a community pool that is inside your HOA dues. Yet this has some downsides. Like, I don’t know, being threatened with a fine because you haven’t had a chance to paint your chimney the HOA approved color because you work two jobs and are passionate about the work you do at your church. This downside also made it so my brother had to work for almost 6 weeks before getting his Window replaced, and while waiting on the HOA he got contacted… by the HOA… about his broken window. So do you see where some frustrations might start to build.

There is a belief that to live in God’s HOA (Heart owners association) we have to work to follow all those rules. These items that make us proper Christians to live in God’s neighborhood. By keeping our actions consistent. Coming to church Sunday, giving a base tithing, and trying to do a service project once a year. We fulfil our side of the covenant. Sadly, that is the old HOA covenant with God. We have so much to do to live in God’s community. As if we can act close enough to perfect that God will pass by us on his HOA walk though. Our cloths are clean enough, our words are clean enough, our handshake is firm enough. As long as we appear to be right with God, that must be the case. It isn’t, we will never be good enough for God’s HOA. “For No human being will be justified in his sight” Romans3:20. With Jesus the covenant was changed.

Christ’s covenant isn’t that we are to work to live with God, but that Christ wants to live with us. Those whose homes and hearts had been ravaged by wear and tear. Some of us can empathize with this. My home has bushes that are untrimmed, yards covered in leaves, both my living room and family room covered in the toys of a highly active 5 and 3-year-old, even my bedroom has shoes and clothes at the foot of the bed. My heart is the same, overburdened with the stress of work, with the worry that my son is doing well enough in school, the fear I am not supportive enough as a husband. Both my heart and home show that beating of use over time. Christ see’s our wear and tear and says it is not what the house or heart looks like that matters. It is a much simpler question. Is it open? Is your heart open to those who are in the most need? Is your house open to those who knock? Are you willing to show your imperfections not to emphasis your own frailty but to Glorify the strength of God?

For what becomes of Boasting? It is excluded. By what law?  By that of works? NO, but the law of faith. For we Hold that person is justified by faith, apart from works prescribe by the law.

Our New Heart Owners Association Covenant is clear. No matter how Good you make yourself look. No matter how many houses you build, no matter how many services you attend, no matter how many sermons you give. We are all justified by the same thing. A faith in the one who presented you his grace. If you have the cleanest house with the best décor, or you have have a home covered in toys, spaghetti stains and dog hair. Grace has been given to you through Christ jesus our lord. We can not do enough to move into God’s subdivision.  So God sent his son to live with us. To live in our imperfection. To live in our frailty, fear, and selfishness. In Christ Jesus God signed up for our HOA. “The Righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction. For all have sinned and short of the glory of God. They are now justified by his Grace as a Gift. “ Our Homes and our hearts are impossible broken, just as God designed. So that we may not depend on our own works, but only on the grace of God.

In this imperfection God’s HOA calls us to one simple thing. Believe. Believe his love abounds over you. Believe you can be his hands and feet. Believe you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. Believe the community of believers are imperfect but can do impossible things. Believe in yourself, for you are a creation of God. Just Believe – It’s a covenant we all can sign. This covenant frees us from the burden of unreal expectations. This covenant frees us from self-loathing, fear, and frailty. For in that covenant of belief we are given a gift, for in that Belief in the Son, We will be Free Indeed.  -Amen

How i Met your Baggage

My amazing wife and i are watching one of my favorite shows of all time, How I Met Your Mother.
It is a really fun sitcom that usually has some morality thread through an episode. This last week we got to an episode that made me really disagree with their premise. Ted (the main character) is struggling to find a  woman who doesn't have baggage. Through the episode, he finds he also has a huge chunk of baggage, but lucky he meets a girl who will help him carry it. For a moment he seems happy, until she unloads all her baggage onto him. Now this baggage ranges from living with her brother, too many cat, hates star wars. Then there is his baggage which was being left at the alter.

My problem comes at the idea of having to share each other load of luggage for a relationship to work. The idea that we are forever weighed down by our past like a weight around our necks and if someone is ever planning on loving us they have to help carry the weight. I know i am blessed in a relationship where i feel we don't have much baggage but really the weight of our past isnt what drives my amazing wife and I. I had a hard time connecting to this episode and i think i know why.

WE ALL SUCK! We all have something in our past that has changed us in a negative way (our baggage). The glory i have found is that i have a personal bell hop. I companion who is always ready to take my luggage to my next stop so i can enjoy my life's adventure unencumbered. !Spoiler Alert! it's Jesus. That is the easy short answer and now all your problems are solved, please don't forget to tip your waitress...

If only it was that easy. Our baggage weighs us down going into knew relationships every time we meet someone. Fear about what they will think, intimidation at the thought of their judgment, and even hatred of those who appear to not carry any burden at all. These personal hesitations have NOTHING to do with the other person! They are actually just what we see when we think about ourselves weighed down by our past. Others see you as God sees you, in this moment, imperfect in your perfection.

We must see ourselves as God sees us, and in doing so find peace. In that peace find the true feather weight of our personal baggage, that we are not doomed to be burdened with it because God has called us to focus on his mission for us. That calling in our hearts that makes us whole without the need for adulation That mission is always forward and never back! Eyes focused on the world God asks us to create everyday filled with hope, joy, and love.

Paul tells us his realization in his letter to the Philippians 3:  Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead. Have you strained to move on from your past? Have you let go of that luggage and let the Grace of Christ bare the load? When you do you can Press toward the goal God has called you to in Christ.

The only person holding your baggage is YOU. So i pray for you, that you may let go of those things that hold you back from being the brilliant being of light you are. 

So here i stand, on the wrong side of the Cross telling you that you are a Luminous being, not this fleshy crude matter. I ask you to drop those things that hold you back! Your fear, sorrow, and pain is exactly that, Yours. It may have helped shape you, but you can never let it define you! 

 “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”