Jesus, be the center

What would it look like to have a Christ-centered life?

Would one diligently study the Bible every day?

Would one simply be obedient to His every command?

Would one give generously to causes, including the church?

Would one help and serve those in need?

Would one work hard to make a difference in God’s world?

 

I think the answer to all of these questions is probably yes, I also wonder if there wouldn’t be more involved.  All of these things are “do” items.  I think God created us to be “doing” kind of people.  Each of us finds satisfaction in doing something that helps others or honors God. 

Yet, part of what it means to have Jesus as the center of our lives is to just be in His presence.  This is the crazy thing about being a disciple.  It is a delicate balance of being called by Jesus, being in His presence and then being sent out to serve Him and others.  I would argue that for most of us, the be with Him is the hardest part.  To be quiet, to be still and to just sit at His feet is foreign to us.  Partially, because Jesus isn’t physically in front of us and partially because it scares us.

What do you think?

Passion

Who has made the biggest difference in your life?

As I look back on it I have had a chance to work with so many different people over the years.  Far and away the ones who have stood out to me are the ones that are passionate.  I really do like passionate people.  Even if our passions lead us in different directions to different conclusions I love it when people wholeheartedly live like they believe.

One of the people I would like to meet in heaven is from Luke 7.  It is the story that Jesus himself said will “always be remembered when his gospel is proclaimed”  It is the story of the sinful woman who risked rejection and scorn and sacrificed a great deal to just be in the presence of Jesus.  The woman stands in sharp contrast to the religous leader who keeps Jesus at arms length.

I have always been attracted to people who seem to want more than anything to be in the presence of Jesus.  They are almost always passionate and devoted people.   They also seem to have a love for others that can only come through a deep understanding of grace and God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ.  I have come across a few in my time and each time I find them so attractive and I hope their love for Jesus will rub off on me.

Jesus ends the moment with these two contrasting characters by saying:

“He who has been forgiven little love little, he who has been forgiven much loves much”

The irony of the line should not be missed.  The bigger sinner in the story is the religous leader who does not honor and embrace Christ, not the “sinful woman” who adores Him.  Something for us all to think about I would guess.

Fear. . .

We are living in a time of great fear.  Fear of losing a job, or a loved one losing a job.  Fear of losing our home or our savings.  The more doom and gloom we hear on the TV, the radio or from our leaders the more we want to conserve. 

I am not sure this in and of itself is a bad thing.  For many of us perhaps a time to conserve is both good and appropriate to put us on a more responsible course.  But, there is also the other side.  We allow our fears to dominate our lives and instead of taking risks with the important things in life, we wait and are passive.

In my experience this is especially true of our finances.  Giving to build the kingdom of God and to those who are in need requires taking a risk.  We often wonder if the money we give will cause us to suffer and we wonder if it will be lost forever. 

I don’t believe in manipulation for giving.  I don’t believe in using extreme photos and stories to tug at people’s hearts to get them to give.  Though I think there is always a place for stirring hearts for worthy and worthwhile causes, the brain should be engaged too.

In my ministry I have tried very hard to be committed to trusting God with the finances.  THIS IS REALLY hard for me.  I want to “fix” it, and sometimes I think if I use guilt and manipulation people will sense my fear and jump in to help out.  I have found this to have the opposite effect on people’s lives.  Throughout the U.S. and the world churches are hurting financially.  Dreams for furthering God’s mission in the world have been sidetracked and sometimes even sidelined.  Many of us leaders struggle to sort it all through and see what God is doing.

Yet, more often then not when people commit to trusting God and following God’s principles report more peace and less anxiety. . . go figure.

Made to serve

What if each one of us was uniquely designed by God to make a difference in the world?  What if your personality, life experiences and gifts were divinely put into your life on purpose?

Most of us look at our lives and see our faults.  It is the rare person who doesn’t see the downside to their life and boldly move beyond themselves to grow and serve.  However, once we experience using our gifts for the kingdom most of us look for an opportunity to do it again or to even take it a step further.

It seems most of the people who occupy the pews or couches on Sunday mornings never really tap into their strengths, their stories and their skills to serve God whole-heartedly in the church and in the world.  So, we end up with a few people doing it all.  People who are lousy at visitation and are not as compassionate and often don’t say the right things go and visit the lonely.  People who are unskilled at leadership end up coordinating messes and wonder why people don’t want to volunteer.  While others who have been made by God from birth to do these things sit on the sidelines and watch or don’t even show up for the game.

There is nothing more exciting in life than finally realizing you don’t have to do everything right or even good to serve.  You can actually do the things that come naturally to you in the church setting and God will honor it.  For some it might be behind the scenes serving, for others teaching, for others counseling, for others serving the poor and downtrodden.  The beauty, you don’t have to do it all.

And to take it a step further the church is better off when you and I don’t.

God’s unique design. . . you!

How has God made you?

If you are looking for an interesting reading check out Psalm 139.  When I was doing my first internship at a youth ministry we memorized this Psalm together.  It has stuck with me all those many years.  When I was in college I would sometimes say it to myself as I walked through the campus to my different classes.  I probably looked like a nut.

In those verses you will find a God who is not up in the heavens far away, but one who is intricately involved in the putting together of life and the world.  To be honest, this is an almost impossible concept for me to understand.  As I drive on the freeway sometimes I contemplate that every single person was uniquely and wonderfully made by the God of the universe.  No matter their age, color, sex or personality.  God made each of us.

In life when I am facing a hard time, especially when I feel like I am not measuring up to the next person I come back to this powerful Psalm.  Can you imagine that the God of the universe looked at me and formed me before I was born to be uniquely me?  He made me to look like me (and my parents) to have my personality and my gifts?  He also does care about me and my life and often that is enough to get me through life’s challenges and struggles.

In that same psalm it says that God has ordained all of our days before one of them came to be.  I have friends who call this God’s “original design” and that each of us has a unique design by God to make His character uniquely shine through us.  Of course we all have similarities that bind us together under the label of human.  We can uniquely think, uniquely love, uniquely make a difference in the world that nothing else in all creation can do.   But, within that uniqueness of being human we each have a uniqueness of being us.  God can and does use each of us to make a difference for good in the world.  And He calls each of us to believe it and live in it every day!

Today take a brief moment to read this Psalm and just think for a moment about what it is saying.

The Duty of Discipleship

I almost titled this entry something else.  I have a hard time with the word ‘duty’, duty for me makes me think of rules and having to do something rather than freely following out of joy.  I know God’s heart for us is not for us to be grumpy, disheartened, but dutiful disciples.  But, at the same time being a disciple of Jesus carries with it a lot of responsibility.  At the core of responsibility is ‘response’, what we will do in and through the power of Jesus.  In the parable of the two sons in the vineyard, the one who said no to his father’s request to work in the vineyard and then went and did the work was the one who pleased the father, not the one who said yes and then didn’t.  Saying yes and following through would be the ideal, but in times where we don’t feel like saying yes, duty is required.

As a disciple one of our first jobs is to figure out what Jesus would like from us His people.  I have found so many ways to hear God’s voice, but nothing works better for hearing God’s voice than finding a time of quiet away from all of life’s distractions (this is really hard) to study the Bible.  As I read the scripture I sense God challenging my convictions, my character and cuts straight to my heart.  I have also discovered the word to be a great doorway to hear God’s confirming voice in the world, whether it is through a friend, a radio program, TV show, movie, an article or a thought.  God teaches us how we are to interact with Him and how we are to embrace the world.  I have also found that one of the ways God uniquely speaks to me is when I come to the end of myself and realize how much I need His vision and grace.  Sometimes this comes when I see others who are “more successful” than I am, sometimes it comes when I make a mistake, but those times do seem to come.

As a disciple we also have a ‘duty’ to respond.  I am definitely one of those types who would rather be caught doing something wrong or messing up than not doing anything at all.  So I would say part of responding is learning to be patient and wait for God’s timing.  Sometimes we have a tendency to push through situations that God never intended for us to push through.  We usually do this because we assume God isn’t working with us and therefore we must do it all.  On the other hand in the modern world of discipleship people are so fearful of failure or preoccupied with other things that we don’t tend to act when God calls us to.

 One of the things that I try to remember is that I really do have no control over the impact or outcome of my service to God.  At the end of the day all I can do is try to serve wisely and faithfully.  The results are in God’s hands.  I also have to remember that I do not have any idea all the things He is doing in any one life at any one time, including my own.

In closing, perhaps here is a statement that will bring you comfort:  “A disciple of Jesus is someone who messes up frequently and usually in a way so that others can see”  

Reread that definition, it shows humility, bravery and boldness that our world really needs!

 

 

The Joy of Discipleship

Imagine for a moment that you could pick anyone in the world to take you under his or her wing and lead you through life.  Wouldn’t that be cool?  I am not exactly sure who I would pick, probably lots of choices I guess.  In many ways the men and women God has brought through my life have been the perfect teachers for me when I needed them.  Imagine for a moment though that there was someone who knew the world better than anyone else.  Imagine someone who knew all the secrets, in the past, present and even the future.  Wouldn’t you want to walk with that person through life.

This is the wonderful story of the gospel.  In the gospel we have the king of the universe coming to earth to walk with us His people.  He made us, He knows what is good for us even when we can’t see it and He even has the whole resources of the earth at His disposal.  Not only that but this same king has the amazing ability to put up with our faults and failures, struggles and fears.  He even UNDERSTANDS them.

A disciple is someone who learns from and becomes like his or her mentor.  The people who belonged to the first church were always known as disciples.  Their goal was not to survive, but to become more like Christ every day. 

I have been a disciple for 30+ years, whether I realized it or not even as a child, I always have been one.  God’s Spirit was always working to make me more like Jesus from before I can remember.  My life has always been filled with the deepest joy when my life has been wholly surrendered to the one who made me, made the world and sustains all of life.  This is one of my favorite verses ever.  It ties together the cost of discipleship and the joy perfectly.

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”  Matthew 13:44

The Cost of Discipleship

When we visited home my heart was stirred.  I enjoyed the feeling of the place that was so comfortable and familiar.  I enjoyed the open space, the views of the water and the trees.  I enjoyed seeing my family and being encouraged and built up by my friends.  I enjoyed seeing my children play with friends they had known since birth.  Part of me wanted to move back into this place of comfort and relax and enjoy myself for even longer.

Yet, there was something deeper God was teaching me.  A phrase that our family has tried to live by since Michelle and I became a family nearly 10 years ago, “our life is not our own”.  The Lordship of Christ comes with it a cost and sometimes the losses we experience following Jesus are greater than others, but as we follow Him there will always be a cost. 

Luke 9:23-24 (NIV) Then Jesus said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”

Now, if I can be honest for a minute.  My cross is hardly a cross.  We live in such a wonderful place that 10 million people live right next door.  And if it didn’t cost so much to live here there would be 10 million more!  We have everything we want including sunny beautiful weather 362 days a year, with the other three having scattered showers.  We have the beach and the ocean, we have everything you can think of within 20 minutes of our home.  It is an amazing place and we love being here.  We love our church family and are excited to be a part of a rich tradition and with so many people that love Jesus.

However, the main reason I love being here is that I know God wants us here.  One of the things that I learned early on in my ministry was that wherever you are,  many days feel like Nineveh (the place Jonah didn’t want to go to) you are discouraged and you assume that Tarshish (the place Jonah thought of as the place to escape from God’s call in his life and be happy)  is real and that once you get there everything will be perfect.  In my experience Tarshish is not real it is an illusion.  Each church is filled with sinners, beginning with the pastor, each church has problems.  Same thing is true with each work place.

As I have thought about all of these things I am reminded over and over that discipleship is about becoming like the one we serve, Jesus.   There are a lot of passages that stir my mind and speak to my soul, but one in particular has been on my mind the last few weeks. 

Matthew 8:19-20 -   Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”         Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

So as we learn to follow our Lord more deeply and more committed, let us remember that Jesus left His Home and will call us to do the same.  I think the main reason is that He is more interested in honoring God’s plans for the world and building our character than He is in our comfort.  In my experience being 100% where I know God wants me to be is worth every sacrifice and every challenge!

 

Summertime

It has been a little while since my last post.  I am really looking forward to the summertime.  I am so thankful for seasons.

In the church all of us have our busy seasons.  As a preaching pastor my busy season is September through May.  With a week break after Christmas to gear up for a great winter.  Then the summer comes and though we still do some fun activities it is nice to slow down and breathe for 3 months.  But, by the time late August comes I am ready to get back into the groove and go all out again.

I enjoy ministry and the church very much.  Yet, I find that I need restoration and my family needs to see me most nights with them for a season rather than dragging them with me or leaving them behind.  I think that God desires rest into even the most profound schedule.  We all need it and will be better off if we take it!

Backward Blessing

I am preaching this week from Luke chapter 6:17-28.  It is Luke’s version of the b-attitudes. . .blessed are you when _________ . . . Matthew spiritualizes these things, but Luke keeps them as Physical.  For instance in the first one Luke says “blessed are the poor” Matthew adds “In spirit”.  Both of course are true in their own unique way.

In a world where many Christians think God is all about making the “american dream” a reality, Christ’s words are almost completely lost.  In fact, if you were to recount your blessings in life I am guessing your list of blessings would be on Jesus’ list of  WOES!!  Me too!  It is crazy how backward we can get life.  For some reason we are pulled away from God’s dreams for us into our cultures dreams.  And we wonder why so many of us are dissatisfied.  Only one in 3 Americans say they are “happy”.  Yet, in Mexico (a third world country) where I just returned from a mission trip greater than 2 out of 3 say they are happy.  Maybe there is more to these words than we realize.

A few things to think about:

Is it things or relationships that bring greatest joy? – In marriage, most couples look back to the time before they had the house and the two cars as the time when they were the happiest. . .

Is it better to be well liked and blend in or to stand up for truth?  – Though it may feel good in the short term to not rock the boat, at some point you will look back on your life and judge it based on the good you did amidst the challenges you faced.

Is it better to embrace challenge and suffering now or to pretend like earth is as good as it gets?  – most of us try to make earth into heaven and wonder why we struggle to find hope amidst all the challenges we face.