A NEW Savior...?

For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me.  And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent.  You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.        

                                                                                                                                    -John 5:36b-40 (NIV)-

It is closing in on Christmas season and at some point soon you will probably drive by or see a Nativity Scene at a church or on a street corner, maybe even in your own yard or on a table or dresser in your house.   Many people, Christian or not, religious or not, know the Christmas story in some form or fashion; yet many of those same people do not believe Jesus is who the Bible says he is. 

            The truth is, a quick look into the writings of ancient non-biblical historians will show that there was a man named Jesus who lived and was crucified by Pontius Pilate precisely when the Bible says it happened.  I don’t have time to get specific on all the history stuff, but the point is, there is not any real argument that can say Jesus didn’t live and live an extraordinary life, nor is there any argument that can really dispute his death on a Roman cross.  My point is that Jesus’ life and death are undisputed fact. 

            However, I don’t find it odd or even out of the ordinary that people today, despite historical evidence, don’t believe that Jesus is who the Bible says he is or did what the Bible said he did.  It don’t find it odd mainly because the many of the people who were literally in the presence of Jesus, the people who actually watched him perform the miracles he performed couldn’t even believe that he was who he said he was.  These were people who would have known the prophecies about the coming Messiah by heart.  These were the people who were waiting for the Messiah to come.  They stood by and watched Jesus fulfill prophecy after prophecy and yet they still would not believe he was who he said he was. 

            With all this in mind; today I was reading in the Gospel of John and read the above statements by Jesus from John 5 and it hits me...its not that they didn’t see Jesus or experience his works and miracles, it’s not even that they weren’t really hoping for the Messiah to come because I believe they were still hoping; Jesus says, it’s not that you didn’t see me doing the work my Father has given me to do…the fact is you simply don’t believe that Salvation comes from me and therefore from the Father.  You have found other things to place your hope and trust in.  You have found new Saviors. 

            The problem of faith in the world and even in the church today isn’t that people don’t believe Jesus came, lived, did all he did, and died, which is what I originally thought.  I think the problem is that we have found new Saviors.  We have found other things to place our hope and trust in.   Things like money, possessions, stock market, bank account, or careers.  We have found new saviors in athletic figures, actors/actresses, music stars, college football teams, boyfriends or girlfriends, government or government figures, and the list goes on.  Jesus said in Matthew 6:21 that the person/place/thing that you place the most value on is where your heart will be also. 

            So, with this season that reminds us of the TRUE SAVIOR that came to the world to bring all things back to a right relationship with the Father through his life, death, burial, and resurrection; where do you place your hope?  In WHAT or WHOM do you place the highest value?  Have you found a new savior or is Jesus the Savior of your life?  Does your checkbook and calendar reflect Jesus as Savior or is it something or someone else?  As I said last month… ask yourself, To Whom or What do I Bow my Knee? 

What I am called to do is Why I have breath

It is my firm belief that each and every one of us has a calling and a purpose.  Your purpose may simply be to exude the Joy of Christ to the world around you or perhaps God has something else that He desires you to fulfill.  Whatever my purpose or your purpose we are called by God the creator of all things to fulfill that role. 

 

It is also my belief that if you have breath in your body God still has something for you to do.  God gives us each and every day that we have; the ultimate question we have to answer is, "Are we striving to fulfill God’s purpose for our life?"  Some people might say that they don’t know what that purpose is, but I believe that if you are following God’s will (which we discover and learn more about every time we open the Bible or come before Him in prayer or listen to Him in silence) then He will use you for His purpose.  Sometimes we may have a firm grasp on that purpose and sometimes we may not, but when we ‘man up’ and take God and His Word (the Bible) seriously He will use us in ways that we can’t imagine or understand.  In fact the full affect of our lives on this world may not be revealed to us until God shows us on the other side of this life. 

One of the prayers I often pray is that my son, Joshua, will grow to be a man of God. I pray that he will seek God’s will at all times and fully rest upon the truth that God is who He says He is and He will do what He says He will do.  When we trust God that way and live lives that prove our faith, then we can all have confidence because the death & resurrection of Jesus promises that one day God will say to Joshua, you, and me: “Well done good and faithful servant, you are my child whom I love and I welcome you into my eternal presence.”  

“To WHOM do I Bow my knee?”

Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours.  Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.

-1 Chronicles 29:11 (NIV)

There is a battle that is constantly being fought in my heart over why I do what I do.  This battle is for the glory, for the prominence, for the expansion of my influence beyond my current sphere, to see praise and honor ascribed to my life and work, and to be the one whom people turn to in their hour of need because I have wisdom that no one else can offer.  To WHOM do I bow my knee?

            You probably noticed a recurrence of the word ‘my’ in that description and that is the problem.  I know with every fiber of my being that as the Chronicler stated above “the greatness, the power, the glory, the majesty, and the splendor are the Lord’s.”  Everything is God’s, all I have, all I am, all my gifts, talents, and abilities.  Everything God gave me through inspiration and revelation, as well as everything that I have learned through my life experience is HIS.  Nothing I have comes from my own ability to do anything.  Everything we have comes from or through the hands of God and so we can know that God is in control of all. 

            My struggle is not in the knowledge of this truth.  My struggle comes in the motivation behind doing what I do.  Do I write this article to prove how faithful I am to the will of God, secretly seeking glory for myself through a show of humility?  Do I write this article simply to give honor and glory to God, the giver of all things?  Do I write this article because I am moved by the Holy Spirit to share a struggle of mine so that others can know they are not alone in this battle?  Why do I do what I do?  To WHOM do I bow my knee?

            I am confident in saying that my motivations typically begin with a desire to be transparent, to connect with others, to lift up the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to carry a word of the Lord that has been revealed to me by the Holy Spirit, and more.  These are generally the initial driving forces behind why I do what I do, but I have to admit that as I am doing what I have been driven to do by God, my selfish motivations come calling and then I care more about how I can benefit from this call of God.  I ask myself, how can I show my wisdom in this?  How can I be made great through this?  How can I extend my influence beyond my borders through this calling of God?  To WHOM do I bow my knee?

            The struggle here is, I am following the call of God, BUT I am making it about ME.  This is a struggle that is always being fought.  The only way I know to keep myself behind the scenes is to continually come back to the initial reason that I do what I do, which is the Call of God.  It is to the one who called me that I must continually come back and bow at HIS feet.  It is he that must receive all the glory, all the majesty, all the splendor; because if I receive these things, then I will FAIL.  When HE receives all the glory, majesty, and splendor then I no longer live but it is Christ who lives in me (Galatians 2.20).  To WHOM do I bow my knee?         

Mistakes vs Sins?

“God, please forgive me for my…MISTAKES.”

“Jesus died to take away the…MISTAKES…of the world.”

“For the wages of…MISTAKES…is death”

          There’s something very wrong with these statements, isn’t there?  Now to be honest, I have never actually heard these statements said.  However, I regularly hear the word ‘Mistake’ substituted for the word ‘Sin’.  It’s scary how often I have to fight the urge to use this word and just as scary how often I hear this word used by others instead of SIN.  Some people might push back and say, ‘Mistake’ doesn’t sound so mean; ‘Sin’ is such a harsh word; or it’s not really PC to use the word SIN because you’re implying that someone actually did something wrong…well that’s pretty much what ‘Sin’ implies.  Just to be clear, let’s define what sin is and what a mistake is, and then talk about why we should care about the difference.

Mistake – Noun- An error in action, judgment, perception, impression, etc

                 Verb-To understand wrongly; misinterpret

Sin – Noun- 1 A transgression* against moral or religious law or divine authority, especially when deliberate. 2 Any action or condition regarded as morally wrong or deplorable.

*Transgress means to disregard & go beyond the bounds of something; for example, a law

          Mistakes and Sins are both words for incorrect actions, perceptions, judgements, etc.  However, the difference between the two lies in the intent and foreknowledge.  A mistake is like a blunder, a miscalculation, ‘an error in judgment’, or even better, ‘acting in ignorance’.  On the other hand, a sin is a deliberate disregard for what is right.  What makes a sin sinful is that the offender absolutely knew that what they were about to do was wrong and yet they followed through with it anyway.  On the other hand, a mistake is a decision or action based solely on only the incomplete knowledge available at the time.  I know without a doubt that it is illegal and even more importantly dangerous to text and drive at the same time and yet on rare occasion, I still do.  By definition this qualifies as SIN; as opposed to someone who truly did not know that texting and driving was illegal.  They would be making a mistake were they to break this law; they would be acting in ignorance.   

          So why say all this??  Why bring this up and possibly split hairs??  First off I need to say that honestly, I am really only speaking to Christians with what I am about to say.  It is time that we (Christians) eliminate the word MISTAKE from our vocabulary when we talk about our SIN.  As far as our walk with God goes, once we understand (based on the Bible, teachings of others, and revelations of God) that something is against the will of God, we no longer have the right to use the word MISTAKE.  A mistake is an error done in ignorance and once someone is no longer ignorant of the wrong, all other instances of disobeying God in the same way is SIN.   

         Please understand, I’m not saying mistakes get free passes and don’t require forgiveness from God.  Both mistakes and sins need repentance, correction, and forgiveness.  However, based on my study of the Bible, we are accountable for what we know and SIN is what God hates; so, being the one who knowingly does what God hates cannot be a good place to be.  God said “My grace is sufficient for you,” (2 Corinthians 12:9) and that grace saves us from our sins.  So we should seek the instruction and will of God, rest safely in the grace of God and run from the SIN that snares and enslaves us.     

The Kingdom of Heaven

“The Kingdom of Heaven” starring Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, Liam Neeson and a few more that I can’t remember is one of my favorite movies.  As the title implies it is loosely referring to the ancient city of Jerusalem.  The movie is set during the time of the Crusades when there was constant warring over who had control of the Holy City of David.  The sad thing is that all the fighting, battles, blood shed, and lives lost were for control of LAND.  It was the ground, the walls, and the literal location that the city existed upon that was important to the warring parties.  But it was Orlando Bloom’s character, Balian, who was one of the few who understood that it wasn’t the City, the walls, or the dirt that was important; rather it was the lives...the souls...the people that lived within the city that were of most importance.  In the end Balian surrenders Jerusalem to the invading Muslim army with the promise of sparing every single life contained within the city walls.

In the movie, the real “Kingdom of Heaven” was an idea of existence in peace, protecting the lives of those who couldn’t protect themselves.  Loving and caring for all people no matter their race, creed, orientation, social status, or economic status.  And there were but a few who actually understood this passion, one of whom being Balian.  It’s interesting to me how similar this idea sounds to the teachings of one Jesus Christ.  If you notice in the Bible, Jesus’ love showed ZERO preference no matter who he was around.  But, when his actions seemed to show preference, it was usually towards the down and out, the rejected by Jewish society.  Throughout the Bible we see a prominent theme and that is to love those who are unloved, to have compassion on the persecuted, to care for the sick and undeserving, to LOVE ALL especially the least of all.

Jesus’ followers believed that he came to establish a new Kingdom on earth where he would reign as King, “the New David”, and that this kingdom (“The Kingdom of Heaven”) of which Jesus talked about so often would last forever here on earth.  The problem was that Jesus’ followers assumed he was here to establish an earthly Kingdom, but ALL earthly Kingdoms have expiration dates.  Rather, Jesus came to establish an eternal Kingdom one that wasn’t about land, territory, cities, walls, power, or any of the other highly esteemed values of Kings and nobles. Jesus’ Kingdom of Heaven is focused on the people.  Jesus said things like: “the Kingdom of God belongs to [the children]” Mark 10; “the last shall be first” Mark 10; “Love your enemies and pray for them” Matthew 5; “Love your neighbor (meaning ‘all others’) as yourself” Matthew 19; “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” John 15.  Jesus’ focus was on people; Jesus came for the lives, for the souls, and for the eternity of God’s creation.  On our own, because of our sin, we were the enemies of God, but God sent Jesus to die for the sins of HIS enemies.  That has nothing to do with the pleasures and pursuits of the world and everything to do with LOVE.  The Kingdom of Heaven is about lives, not land; people, not power; eternity, not empires.  And because this is what the King is about, it is what we, his people should be about. 

We were made to Love

The love for equals is a human thing–of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing–the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing–to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints.  And then there is the love for the enemy–love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world.

From The Magnificent Defeat by Frederick Buechner

God has a specific purpose that he wants all of us to seek and strive for.  In 1 Corinthians 12:4-7 Paul writes:

“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.  There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.  There are different kinds of working, but the Same God works all of them in all men.  Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”

God has given us all very specific gifts for the purpose of doing what he has called each of us to specifically do for His Kingdom.  That fact has always been present in my life and it has been the number one thing I have always wanted to do and fulfill. 

However, over the last few years if there is anything I have learned: I have learned that I was made for love.  I am much more aware now than ever before that the FIRST & MOST important calling that God has placed upon ALL our lives is to LOVE and love unconditionally.  Jesus tells us in Matthew 22:37-40 that the greatest commandment of all is “Love the Lord with ALL your heart, soul, and mind.  And the second is love your neighbors as much as and more than you love yourself” (my paraphrase).  To love God and love others (meaning ALL people) IS the greatest calling we have as Christians, period.  It’s not about denominations, programming, style of music, traditions, income, hopes, dreams, or anything else that WE think is important.  Life is about loving God and loving all people: rich, poor, fortunate, unfortunate, ally, enemy, etc; it makes no difference.  Love God and Love Others; THAT is why we do what we do, because that is the action that will truly change the world, or as Buechner puts it “conquer the world.”

The Ministry of Your Heart

I wrote this back in June 2008...I really enjoy looking back and reading what I wrote and comparing that to where I am now.  I hope you enjoy this as well. 

-1 Thessalonians 2:19-20-

For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes?  Is it not you?  Indeed, you are our glory and joy. 

I believe that God has planted within each and every one of us a passion and a love.  There are many things we desire to do in life, but there is something that simply tugs at the heart of a child of God.  For some people it is the ministry of compassion, for others it is the ministry of teaching, and still others simply love to serve without being seen.  We all have a ministry that we will take part in no matter how much or little free time we have to give.  My point here is simply to pose a couple questions: 

First, what is the ministry of your heart?  The ministry of Paul’s heart was the spread of the gospel and the souls of those he came into contact with.  What is that one thing you cannot say “No” to; not because of who is asking, but because of what is being asked of you?  It is possible that you may not know yet and that is okay.  It can take time to understand what really “fuels your fire.”  Take some time to think about this question: what is the ministry of your heart?  To help you understand maybe you need to ask these questions: What stirs your emotions faster and bigger than anything else?  Where do your passions lie?  What gets you really excited?  What is the one thing you would do to better this world if money and resources were non-issues?  These and other questions like these may help you to find the “ministry of your heart”.  Pray that God would reveal this to you in the days to come. 

Second, what are you doing about that ministry?  Many times in church we get comfortable enjoying the food we are fed in the Worship Service, in Sunday School, in Small Group, etc; we enjoy the fellowship that we have with others during those times as well.  The problem is we often forget about the hours of service that goes into making those times of Worship, Learning, and Fellowship happen.  If you have a cause or a purpose tugging at your heart, if you feel the Holy Spirit prodding you to join a ministry; don’t hesitate!!  If there is a ministry you want to serve, please find someone in that ministry and make that desire known.  If you simply want to serve, but don’t know where God has called you to; make that desire known to your church leadership.  They can try to help you find your place of service. 

There is always room for more servants in the church, where will you serve; who or what will be your glory when Jesus returns?  Find a place to serve, jump in with all your heart, and God will reward you much more richly than you could ever imagine.