Missing the Christmas Story?

It's the Christmas Season again! Typically, many are anticipating the events of the season by making plans, buying presents, developing menus, and finalizing travel arrangements. For believers, we are trying to do the same things yet, we also try to add Jesus to the mix by recognizing that “He is the reason for the season.” And while I believe that we get the “point” of Christmas, we sometimes miss the most important aspect of the Christmas story. Matthew's and Luke's account (Matthew 1:18-2:12 and Luke 1:26-2:20) give us the details surrounding the birth of Christ and the prophetic implications of His coming, namely, bringing salvation and the kingdom of God to a world in captivity. John's account of the Christmas story, however, provides a picture of what those things actually mean. You might be questioning the fact if I've ever read the gospel according to John because there is no mention of Mary and Joseph before Jesus was born, the virgin birth, Bethlehem, the wise men, shepherds, angels, or a baby in the manger. In fact, John's description is summed up in one, yet extremely powerful verse that states: “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us...” (John 1:14).

For many, that verse reminds that Jesus came to us in the flesh and walked this earth clothed in humanity. The phrase of “making His dwelling among us” is often translated “tabernacled” among us. In other words, the God of the universe pitched a tent on earth and lived among us. We sing songs about Emmanuel or “God with us” and we're reminded of this great mystery of God making Himself flesh. Yet, how often do we consider the implications of this truth and its relation to the Christmas story? Its easy to relegate this to a picture of a helpless baby in a manger who grows up to die on a cross for our sins. After all, that is the reason why He had to come--there was no other way. The unfortunate thing in all of this is in seeing Emmanuel through the eyes of history and not through the truth of reality.

Jesus did come in the flesh and dwelt among us. It is an historic fact that cannot be disputed (unless you're a rouge secular scholar who ignores what even the most critical of skeptics have conceded to recognize). In the Christmas story, we as believers, tend to capsulize the event into a “silent night, holy night”“ which was on a “cold winter's night that was so deep.” We look back on the story during this season and create a nostalgic feeling that brings about excitement when we reminiscence about the coming of the child-King. John's statement, however, runs much deeper than to simply remind us that Jesus came as Emmanuel. Rather, John offers us a picture of what the coming of Jesus would be in reality to “all who received Him, to those who believed in His name...” (John 1:12). In becoming “children of God” something incredible happens----we become the Christmas story!

If I were to ask the simple question of “where does God dwell?” many would respond, “In heaven.” If I were to ask “Where does Jesus dwell?” to a believer, the answer would most likely be “In my heart.” The reality is that as believers, God has chosen to make His dwelling in the tent of our flesh. Its not that He “dwelt among us” as the KJV renders, but that He is even now “dwelling among us” in the tabernacle of our flesh. As Christians, we carry the light within us. We are the helpless babes who are completely dependent upon our Father to help us live as we should in this world. We are the one who have been called to tell a world bound in captivity that “salvation has come” and the “kingdom of God” is at hand. Emmanuel has now become “God with us, GOD IN US!” Christmas is not a story that is confined to history but it is a story that is continuous until the day when Jesus comes once again to bring all things to completion. So while we may enjoy the traditions of this Christmas season and indulge in some things that in light of eternity really have no importance, let's not forget the most important truth of the Christmas story: We are the dwelling of “the Word made flesh” called to shine light into the darkness and to proclaim “Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth to men” for salvation has come through Jesus Christ!

A Subtle Deception

Life as of late has been distracting! The demands of being a husband, father, son, employee, church leader, friend and even a follower of Jesus Christ (not that this is a separate entity in itself) makes me feel as if I am being pulled in a hundred different directions. Some may dismiss this as being the result of the holiday season; however, I know that this is not the case. Instead, I believe it is a ploy of the enemy. When we consider the weapons of spiritual warfare in which the enemy can use against the saints of God, in reality, there are only two which he can wield: deception and accusation. The problem for the believer is in seeing “how” he actually uses these potent weapons from his arsenal. I would be lying if I did not say that I feel “accused” during this season of my life. Am I being a good enough husband and father? Am I being the best leader at my church? Am I even being as faithful of a follower of Jesus as I can be? The answer is simple: No! I will never be good enough----because nothing good is in me apart from Jesus Christ. I understand that and I am able to thwart his accusations of my unworthiness based upon the fact that I am worthy in Christ Jesus (Romans 5:1-11). The real struggle, for me, is in not buying into the enemy's deceptive ways.

Most of us think of deception as being an intense cover-up of the true facts. In church circles, we look at people who are in cults such as Jehovah Witnesses, Mormonism, and Islam as being a viable example of being “deceived.” We also tend to look at someone who knows the truth of Christianity and has chosen to live a life diametrically opposed to it as being “deceived.” For me, the enemy will never capture me in one of those two camps. When the truth of Scripture is being violated by false teaching, I am immediately stirred to combat. Although I am prone to sin, I am also well aware of that the life Christ has mapped out before me is better than anything this world could ever offer. Does that mean I am immune to the enemy's deception? I wish I could say I am, but then I would be deceiving you. Satan's deceiving tactics upon mature saints is far less subtle but just as potent as his blinding the minds of those in the world. You see, the very fact that we get “distracted” shows that we are susceptible to a lethal form of deception by the enemy.

God has an intended life for all of us to live. He has a plan and purpose for us. The problem is that we too often define the things that are “important” to us in that plan as opposed to allowing God to define the things that should be important to us----and this is where the enemy deceives us. By making us believe that the various aspects of our lives are ours to manage, organize, and freely pursue, he gets us to live in a place where life becomes so cluttered that God's purposes cannot be fully realized in our lives. He takes our relationships, schedules, obligations, concerns, desires, and conflicts and magnifies them in our lives. We begin to believe that these things are necessary priorities in our lives and because we have so many, we become overwhelmed with the day to day management of them. Even as the Christmas season approaches, many believers are experiencing unnecessary stress because of the demands they believe to be placed upon them during this time of year. In the end, we allow little time for what truly matters and much emphasis to the fleeting traditions of the holiday.

Hebrews 12:1 tells us to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that easily entangles us.” Rather than just telling us to do that, the writer of Hebrews gives us the solution: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus...” (Hebrews 12:2). The enemy's plan is to hinder God's purposes in us and to entangle our lives so that we will be ineffective as the children of God. The writer of Hebrews suggests that this happens because we get focused on the wrong things in life. In essence, we get “distracted.” Only when our eyes are fixed upon Christ can the things of life, which are important, be determined. We may think certain people and plans need our attention, but according to the Lord, they might not. Unless we are constantly fixed upon Christ, we run the risk of being distracted and deceived into believing that what we're doing is productive and essential to the plan of God. For the believer, Satan's deceptive power exists in the lie that all that is a part of our lives matters----concealing the truth that it's not the life we have been given which matters but the One who gives us life that demands our full priority.

Cheap Worship or Cleansed Temple?

It has been some time since I have posted to this blog. Although life has been busy, I would blame my absence upon something much more significant----wandering aimlessly in the wilderness. I’m certain that for all of us, we have at one time or another found ourselves there. For whatever reason, God allows us to experience the harsh conditions of desert living to help in fulfilling His purposes in our lives. In my case, the painful journey of my soul over the last few months has resulted in a glorious resurrection of passion and love for Christ. This past weekend, I experienced my eleventh silent prayer retreat. As is my custom, I’ve learned not to have any particular agenda to fulfill; rather, I simply knew I wanted to meet with the Lord.

During my first day of retreat, I was directed to read Mark 11:15-18 concerning Jesus’ cleansing of the temple. At first glance, I pictured myself there with the Lord. I saw His face in expectation to worship the Father in the temple and then, suddenly it turned angry as He was greeted with the unholy activities taking place in the temple courts. With a righteous indignation, I pictured Jesus grabbing a whip, snapping items off of the tables and overturning them as He proclaimed, “This is a house of prayer!” That’s right Jesus! Get those people out of the temple who profane it by using it for the purpose of lesser things….oops! At that point, there were only two people I pictured in the temple: Jesus and myself. The bible tells us that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19). If we consider that thought for a moment, we have to ask ourselves, “If we’re the temple, then what is the temple’s purpose?” The Old Testament imagery allows us to understand that the temple was the place where God dwelt among His people. As believers, we understand that particular dynamic of Christ dwelling within us; however, do we ever consider the other function of being the temple? The temple was also the place of worship. When Jesus came to the temple that day, it wasn’t for the recognition that God was dwelling there. Instead, Jesus came to make it his place of worship and prayer. Yet, he discovered that the activities taking place within the temple was anything but glorifying God.

I wonder how many of us have a temple full of merchandise that doesn’t belong. How many times do you suppose the Lord examines His temple and sees only that we have made it into a den of thieves that steal from the purpose of our lives in worshiping Him?  We are created to worship the Lord----but what have we made of it? When Jesus entered the temple that day it still appeared to be the temple. All of the elements of Jewish worship were present, sacrifices were being made, and people were even engaged in worshipful activities; yet, the other things taking place in the temple is what drew the Lord’s attention. Jesus could have dismissed the buying and selling going on in the temple by recognizing that there were some areas of the temple that was experiencing genuine worship---but He didn’t! In fact, he accused the entire temple as being a “den of robbers” that stole from the true essence of what the temple was intended for.

As I reflected upon those thoughts, it became clear to me that I had things within my temple that hindered my worship of the Lord. These things go beyond the issue of “sin” and touch the happenings of everyday life. Believe it or not, our lives are not our own. We were not created to decide what we want to do with our lives. We were created for worshiping the Lord and anything else that falls short of that in our lives profanes His temple. In essence, anything in my life that would compete with my worship of God is nothing more than robbing God of the glory that is rightfully His. I discovered that I have a temple that is cluttered with worthless things that steal from God. I believe that if we were honest with ourselves, we might all discover areas of our temple that fall short of truly being a house of worship. It would be wise for us to understand that anything in our lives that cause us to be distracted from our relationship with Christ and anything that would cheapen our existence in glorifying Him is what Jesus desires to cleanse from our lives. When we allow Christ to overturn the tables in our lives and reveal all that does not belong in His temple, we will finally begin to live in that way that God intended us to live for Him.   

  

Don't Be Hatin'

Over the last few weeks, I have noticed an alarming trend that is growing within the body of Christ. From the controversy surrounding a major fast food chain and a myriad of snippets posted on Facebook, I’m concerned that the church has lost something of great significance concerning its purpose. Put simply, we have misunderstood the love of God to the point of rendering us ineffective to make an impact upon the world we live in. We certainly know that God loves us and that He loves others. We can stand upon the truth of John 3:16 and confidently proclaim that God loves the world; however, the problem we face is in understanding what God’s love actually means. For too many, His love is equated with this idea that we cannot judge the fruit of righteous and unrighteous living. In fact, many are now holding to the belief that it would be wrong for us to hate the sin of others because we have enough sin in our own lives to worry about. We’ve created a new church culture that holds to an “I’m okay, you’re okay” mentality and we’re all in the sin boat together so let’s not talk about it! We so want to love people into the kingdom of God and make them feel warm and cozy about Jesus that we forget, unless there is a reckoning of one’s sin, THERE IS NO SALVATION! Without a world seeing its sin for what it is, the idea of Jesus makes no sense. Furthermore, how does a world that is blinded in deception even begin to recognize sin if the church is not revealing the truth of their condition?

Jesus gave the church the commission to “go into all the world and make disciples of the nations” (Matthew 28:19). In other words, we are called to reach this world with the message of the gospel and to reproduce disciples who follow Jesus Christ. Part of this mission is in embracing God’s expectations concerning sin. God’s Word has commanded the church to address the subject of sin on an ongoing basis:

“Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness (sin) but rather EXPOSE them” (Ephesians 5:11).

“The acts of the sinful nature as obvious…I WARN you as I did before that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19-21).

“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified; that you should avoid sexual immorality…the Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already TOLD you and WARNED you” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-6)

“The Spirit clearly says that in the later times some will abandon the faith and following deceiving spirits…if you POINT THESE THINGS OUT to the brothers you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ” (1 Timothy 4:1-6).  

Sin should be and needs to be dealt within the culture of the church. We are to be a people who warn and tell others about the devastating consequences that sin brings to our lives. We are to recognize sin and to eradicate it from our lives and from the church! If we do not do these things, we fail to exercise the love of God to others. Avoiding the obvious sin of others and looking the other way because we do not want to offend, is much like letting your child run into a busy street after a ball. If you love your brother and sister in Christ, you much rather offend them to the pathway of life than to condemn them to the highway of death. Sin ALWAYS has consequence. We have biblical permission to point sin out in other’s lives---not to condemn, but to show love and help them to become true disciples of Jesus Christ.

We too often forget that the message of the gospel is “repent for the kingdom of God is near” (Matthew3:2, 4:17). Even Peter’s first sermon after Pentecost made no mention of God’s love; rather, Peter pointed out the people’s sin and there need to recognize Jesus Christ as the only one who can save (see Acts 2). We cannot convince the world that Jesus loves them by making them believe that being a Christian will give them a better life. God’s love can only be understood in light of the subject of sin. By the church refusing to stand for righteousness, holiness, and truth, we refuse to show the world God’s love!  As God’s people, we need to address sin in our society and call this world to repentance. Why do we think it is impossible to hate sin and love the sinner? Our hypocrisy in the church screams when we will not hesitate to rally for a good cause that will help someone in a crisis. We hate what the person is going through and we’ll even voice our concern over their condition. We’ll ask things like, “What are you going to do about your cancer? What is your plan in looking for a new job? How will you handle life during this divorce?” Yet, we won’t address the sin that is destroying their lives more than any crisis they will ever face because we are afraid as being seen as offensive and unloving. Do we really think we’re going to give Jesus a bad name in proclaiming His position on sin? The time has come for us to quit being cowards for Christ and boldly make a stand against sin---both in the church and the world---and throw away the notion that offending someone cannot be loving them at the same time. As Paul said, “Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel” (1 Corinthians 9:16).  This gospel was more than “God loves you,” but it most certainly addressed the sinfulness of man and his need for a Savior.

In the end, we need to realize that as believers, we are to hate sin! Regardless of whose sin it is, we are to hate what God hates. We must refuse the postmodern, emergent theological garbage that suggests Christianity is permissive, understanding, and all-inclusive religion. God does so love the world; but He showed that love by being crucified because of our sin that expresses itself in things like sexual immorality, homosexuality, lying, cheating, stealing, rebellion, hatred, and  jealously to name a few. Sin is the problem and will always be man’s one dilemma in life. The answer is simple in showing the world the love of Christ: first show them the sin that separates them from a loving God who gave all He could possibly give, and by doing so, they will recognize the depths of God’s love that has called them “out of darkness into the wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).       

A Sabbatical Worth Taking

First of all, I want to thank all of you who have taken the time to faithfully read True Life Worship blog and the things that God has placed upon my heart. As it stands right now, I am currently taking a few weeks off in order to make the final edits on my book In Spirit and In Truth: The Heart's Cry for Genuine Worship. This project has been about a year long endeavor and God has finally provided the means to get this work published. Some of what you have been challenged with in this blog will be addressed in depth in the book. My goal is to have the book ready for publishing by July 15th. I would appreciate your prayers as this is a very tedious process. This book reflects my heart's cry to see true worship restored to the church. As much as the modern day worship has served to help us gain a greater sense of experiencing a more intimate and personal perspective our relationship with Christ, it has not been without some damaging consequences. My book explores the areas where we have strayed from biblical precedent and calls the church to the glory of worshiping Christ "in spirit and in truth." Thanks for your patience and support. When this project is over, I will joyfully continue sharing thoughts from my heart in order that we as the Body of Christ can be encouraged!

Romancing the Cross?

Have you ever caught yourself listening to a familiar song and then realizing that the lyrics suddenly do not set well with you? This past weekend, as my wife and I were enjoying a morning drive to Starbucks, we were listening to a song that described a person’s response to the experience of the cross. As the music beautifully set the tone for the song, my wife spoke up when the lyrics proclaimed (not an exact phrasing, but close enough) “at the cross where you stole my heart.” Immediately, my wife spoke up and said, “Did Jesus really go to the cross to steal our hearts?” I thought about that for a moment and responded, “No, He went to the cross to die for our sin.” This in turn, launched a thought provoking discussion about what we have done with the subject of the cross---in particular, in our understanding of it in worship.

The unfortunate theology that we have emphasized in the world of worship music is in leaving us with a “good feeling” when we think about Jesus on the cross. This sentiment has created a culture in the church that has downplayed the issue of sin and rather than seeing the awfulness of our transgressions, we perceive that the cross is a wonderful place where we can enjoy the warm and cozy feeling of God’s embrace and love. The cross does speak of God’s love for us. John 3:16 announces that “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son…” The giving of His Son, however, was not in the vein of “this is a wonderful way I can show how much I love them and want to win their hearts.” Rather, God’s intention is more of “the putrid-ness of your sin is so dreadful that in order for you to understand its magnitude, I have provided the one and only way for you to truly know the extent of my love for you.” As John 3:17 states, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” In essence, God did not send Jesus to leave us to die in our sin, but He sent Jesus to rescue us from the damnation of sin. The modern consensus in our culture appears to view the experience of the cross with such “romanticism:” we being the damsel in distress and our loving knight in shining armor came to the rescue. The reality is that we are more like the “wicked witch of the forest” as before Christ, there was nothing innocent about us---nor was there anything that deserved such as rescue.

Because we have presented the cross as being such as “wonderful place,” we have clouded our vision of the ugliness of sin. We too often forget in our salvation that God still hates sin and the forgiveness of sin is based upon the bloody, painful, and tortuous sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We can too easily sing “O happy day when you washed my sin away,” with a “pep in our step” and miss the actual impact of what remembering the cross should have us reflect upon. I believe the words of the old hymn, O Sacred Head Now Wounded captures a true perspective of what dwelling upon the cross should have us experience:

O sacred Head, now wounded,

with grief and shame weighed down,

now scornfully surrounded

with thorns, thine only crown:

how pale thou art with anguish,

with sore abuse and scorn!

How does that visage languish

which once was bright as morn!

What thou, my Lord, has suffered

was all for sinners' gain;

mine, mine was the transgression,

but thine the deadly pain.

Lo, here I fall, my Savior!

'Tis I deserve thy place;

look on me with thy favor,

vouchsafe to me thy grace.

What language shall I borrow

to thank thee, dearest friend,

for this thy dying sorrow

thy pity without end?

O make me thine forever;

and should I fainting be,

Lord, let me never, never

outlive my love for thee.[1]

I believe that because of our failure to celebrate the cross with the spirit of humility over the spirit of “romance,” we have lost the impact of sin and grace in the body of Christ. The cross should never make us “feel happy.” It is a place where Jesus died and where provision has been made for our sin to die. We are admonished in scripture to “take up our cross” daily and to be “crucified with Christ” as expressions for sacrificing our lives for the sake of Christ. Although there is freedom through the cross, it will forever remain a place associated with pain, sacrifice, sin, and death. It brought us life but only because death occurred there. My prayer is that the church would recapture a genuine picture of the cross and refrain from cheapening its true impact. As a friend recently told me, “It was the only way” that Jesus could go in order to accomplish what God sent Him to do for us. We would be wise to remember that the cross isn’t a place where God “stole our hearts” but where He cleansed them from the wickedness of sin that once eternally separated us from ever knowing of His great love.

---

[1] Text: Anonymous; trans. by Paul Gerhardt and James W. Alexander
  Music: Hans L. Hassler, 1564-1612; harm. by J.S. Bach, 1685-1750

Not a Fan? Thoughts on Defining the Relationship

In Sunday school class this week, we began a new series based on Kyle Idleman’s Not a Fan. After watching the first video segment, I am---for a lack of better words----a “fan” of Kyle’s perspective in revealing what I believe is the single most destructive problem in the church today: the lack to true commitment to Jesus Christ. I won’t indulge in the details of the class or reference the book; however, I will reference one aspect of Kyle’s thoughts which have sparked some thoughts of my own. Kyle asked in the first video segment to “Define the relationship” concerning us and Christ. Relationships go through this process. A couple that dates will someday have to come to the place where they “define the relationship” as it relates to their experience together. How committed do they see themselves being to each other? Are they ready to take the next step? Are there areas that are “off limits” one to another? These are questions that have to be “defined” in order to see where the relationship stands and where it will go in the future. The same holds true with our relationship with Christ. How do we define it? Who is Jesus to us and how much of our lives are we willing to give Him? Answering these questions, however, is part of the problem. The truth is, we have only two options in “defining the relationship” between Jesus and us---will we or won’t we follow?

The unfortunate problem with the church of today as we have “defined” God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the entirety of the Christian faith, by our own “definitions” of what we want them to be. We fail to realize that when it comes to the whole idea of being a “Christian,” it is God who defines what that means. We have false prophets in the emergent church who want to “redefine” things like heaven and hell because it does not fit into their definition of what they think God’s love and grace means. By suggesting that “love wins” and God couldn’t possibly send anyone to hell because of His love, they have diminished God’s sense of justice. For most of us, “love is blind,” but for God, love does not mar His ability to do what is righteous and just (Sorry Rob, but some things just can’t be stretched like springs on a trampoline).

The truth is everything is defined by God----even our very existence. We may think we are the masters of our own fate, but it is God who ordains our steps, declares our purpose, and defines our reason for being alive. Love cannot be defined by us. Sin cannot be defined by us. Even God Himself, cannot be defined by us. We tend to differentiate between the “good things” and “bad things” of life; however, in God’s economy, He defines things like hardship, struggle, pain, and suffering as things that serve as catalysts for “goodness” to result in our lives. If we had our way, we would avoid these things because we see them as being “bad.” Jesus once gave his disciples the worst possible image to imagine and told them that doing this was a good thing. In John 6:53, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Although he was not suggesting cannibalism, he was suggesting to his disciples that which needed to define the relationship----and in their eyes, it was not “good.” Up to this point, people had defined Jesus as the One who would meet their needs, make them feel better, and inspire them with His teaching. This was the Jesus they wanted! This was the Messiah that they defined He needed to be! Jesus submitted to these would be disciples that there is much more to the definition of being a “follower of Christ” than simply receiving the benefits of the relationship with Him.

This problem unfortunately goes back to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve were deceived in believing that they would be able to be the “definers” of the relationship. Genesis 3:5 states, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Satan offered them the bait of being able to be the ones who could “call the shots” alongside of God and roughly 6,000 years later, we still find ourselves wanting to eat the same fruit. We open the Bible and we attempt to “define” the things of Scripture based upon our reasoning rather than upon God’s intended meaning. We redefine things like “take up your cross, die to yourself, and go and sin no more” to mean something other than what Jesus actually meant for those thoughts to convey----“you are to no longer live for yourself!” To further, Jesus also added the idea that “unless” we do these things “we CANNOT be His disciples.” Surely, He doesn’t mean that I can’t be a “Christian” if I don’t choose to do these things; after all, that’s “legalism.” I don’t have to do anything to earn my salvation. True, but you have to do something to live in it! And if we’re not going to take Jesus at His word by candy-coating the simple truth that in order to be a follower of Jesus you MUST do what He says, then I guess the only other alternative is that you will remain a “fan” who experiences the game from afar yet pretends to be a contender.

The Unmistakable Pain of Worship

We live in a world of convenience and comfort. For several years now, the Western world has developed a myriad of items that serve to make our lives more tolerable, pleasurable, and comfortable. On any given day and at any given time, we can find something that will alleviate our discomfort, dissatisfaction, displeasure, or disinterest in whatever we are experiencing. Whether it comes in the form of a pill to cure a headache or comes as a pocket-size device that entertains our boredom, we seem to have discovered a way to challenge one of life’s greatest enemies: pain. Although Jesus said, “in this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33), we assume that he didn’t mean that we could make that “trouble” much more tolerable. In fact, we try to do whatever is possible to avoid any pain that might be associated with that trouble. While many consider the modern day cures for our “trouble dilemma,” a positive step in the progress of mankind, I believe that it is having a detrimental and damaging effect upon the church. 

For some reason, there is a trend in the church that aims to ensure that people are “comfortable” in the church. We in no way would desire that people would have a “bad experience” during a worship service on Sunday morning. After all, we want people to be “happy” and hopefully, become a regular attendee of our congregation. If anyone does have a “problem” with what is taking place, we will jump through hoops to make sure that whatever “pain” they are experiencing can be soothed so that they will not walk away offended. At this time, you’re probably thinking, “Well, yeah, of course we cannot have a congregation full of offended people who find church a rather unpleasant experience.” For the most part, I would agree; however, have you ever asked yourself, “What if it is God’s desire to inflict pain upon someone?” Would God do that? Absolutely!  

I recently heard a Chip Ingram radio broadcast in which he challenged me to rethink yet another dynamic to the life of worship. He brought to light the fact that God asked Abraham to circumcise every male associated with his home (Genesis 17). As Chip explained, “this was not a pleasant experience.” In fact, it would have been a very painful experience. As Abraham was to enter into “covenant” with the Lord, the Lord required that he first go through “pain.” This does not compute to the modern day mind sitting in the modern day church overflowing with the modern day conveniences for living. We have come to picture worship as being a tender, solemn, make me feel good with goose bumps experience. After all, if it doesn’t feel good, it must not be God. Yet, if we read Scripture, we find that worship at times is a bloody, painful sacrifice that is anything but comfortable. When Paul admonished the Romans to present themselves as “living sacrifices” (Romans 12:1) what image did they picture? They would have pictured a priest holding on to the head of a lamb and slicing the animal’s throat with a razor sharp knife.  When Jesus said, that “unless you take up your cross” (Luke 14:27) you cannot be my disciple (which also infers you cannot worship me), what did those hearing think? They knew crucifixion to be the most gruesome and painful way for a man to die----and Jesus was asking for them to do the same in following Him. These images were the closest things that the New Testament writers could describe in relating metaphorically a picture of the difficult side to a life of worship. As we worship the Lord, there should be a continual event of “tearing off the flesh” from our lives----and this can be a rather painful experience.

Consider the sun for a moment. There is nothing like the gentle glowing warmth of an early morning summer day. There may be a slight chill in the air and when the sun’s rays beam upon you, suddenly, everything feels cozy; however, if you remain in the sun throughout the day and experience the brilliance and fullness of it presence, the result will be rather painful as you will acquire a “sun burn.” The same can be said about enjoying the light of sun. We can look around at the beauty of our world due to the light the sun provides but if you have been sitting in a dark room and suddenly step outside on a sunny day, it becomes an uncomfortable experience for the eyes. It is much like when God shines His glory upon our lives and we suddenly find ourselves in the fullness of His presence. Our flesh will painfully “burn” and when he shines His light on the dark areas of our lives, we will experience discomfort in trying to open our eyes to what he wants to show us. If our experience of worship is not taking us to these places in our lives, then we are far from approaching the throne of grace. In other words, our worship experience has become a comfortable religious routine rather than the pursuit of God and His glory.  This is why I remain adamantly against the notion of “seeker-sensitive” worship. Yes, by all means, provide “seeker-sensitive” evangelism, but worship is the pursuit of God and if you are living in sin, coming into the presence of an awesome and mighty God should be a fearful and unpleasant experience (Exodus 20:18-21, Hebrews 10:25-31). Even within ourselves, the fleshly areas of our lives should not find “worship” a pleasant experience. Instead, our flesh should feel as if it is sheep going to the slaughter. I’m sure when Abraham suggested to his household of adult males that they were to be “circumcised” that there was not much rejoicing going on that day----yet their obedience to go through the painful ritual resulted in worship before the Lord.

We must keep in mind that the predominate image of worship in the Bible is “sacrifice.” Jesus expressed this several times but encapsulated with the thought that “greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Among this statement and many others that suggest “losing one’s life” is something that has to be considered along the journey of worshiping the Lord. We act as avoiding the “pain” of what true worship sometimes brings to our lives is an optional endeavor reserved for those who are “radicals.” What many do not realize that the “pain” which the Lord inflicts upon our lives is a “healing pain” that is necessary for us in order to truly experience Him as He intended. The act of circumcision that Abraham endured only brought him deeper into the covenant relationship with the Lord. God brings us to places of pain in worship so that He can remove the sickness of our souls and give us the freedom to be what we were created to be in worshiping Him. Worship isn’t always a bed of roses…sometimes it’s a stick full of thorns that remind us that when it comes to grabbing hold of God, pain will be inflicted upon our flesh. When that happens, we will come to understand the unmistakable pain of worship.

Being Distracted to Death

Distractions! They are all around us. As of late, my life feels bombarded with circumstances, issues, and focuses that make me feel as if my life is ebbing away into a purposeless abyss. It is as if my heart longs for being in the presence of God and yet, it seems as if I cannot get there. Although I attempt to seek the Lord on a daily basis, my mind is continually being pulled away by all of the other happenings of life. While many would excuse that as simply being “real life” in that we cannot expect to go through life and not have other things that are not “God” at the forefront of the our minds at times, I would offer another explanation. From the way I read Scripture, God never intended for us to be distracted by the cares of this world. In fact, he warns us that it is possible that the life he offers us can be “choked out” by the “worries of life and the deceitfulness of wealth” (Matthew 13:22). Maybe that’s how I feel, like the life of Christ in me is being choked out by all of the other things I am dwelling upon in my life. The rigors of day to day life have taken their toll and I have caught myself thinking about so many other things that truly do not matter when compared to what Jesus Christ offers me.

I know that it sounds as if I am “burning out or backsliding” but in all honesty, that’s not the case. I am simply suggesting that I am sick of all of the things in my life that I have discovered which are competing against Jesus in me! Song of Solomon says it best in reminding us to “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom” (Song of Solomon 2:15). In the beauty of this intimate relationship between two lovers, they had to stop for a moment and realize that there are things that can potentially damage their relationship. They weren’t concerned with the “big things” like an “affair or abuse;” rather, they recognized that relationships are ruined by the slow and subtle things that come into our lives almost unnoticed. In surveying a vineyard full of fruit, one would hardly notice if a few grapes were missing off of a vine. You could look across that lush growth of your labor and not notice the weeds that were beginning to work their way up the vines to choke the life from the plant. Unfortunately, it is only after the destruction is noticeable that many people take action.

I cannot help to consider the several warnings of Jesus in reminding his disciples that when the “Master” returns he wants to find his servants “doing” what he is has commanded (Matthew 24:46 and Luke 12:43). What is it the Lord expects us to be doing? Did he intend for us to get so involved in the everyday affairs of life on earth that the thought of Him is just another aspect of our lives that we have to juggle in our busy schedules? Did he intend for us to make our own plans as what we are to do with our time, money, and resources in this life (see Matthew 25:14-30 to answer this question)? Hebrews 12:1 reminds us that in the race of life that we are to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.” How do we do that? By “FIXING OUR EYES ON JESUS” (Hebrews 12:2). The servant who is not doing what His Master has commanded him to do has his eyes fixed upon the wrong focus-----and this is what distractions aim to do.

For me, I had to be confronted with the convicting question of “why?” Why do I choose to fix my eyes on others things? Why do I choose to look toward other things in life as if they are more important and interesting than Christ? Distractions are one of the most effective tools of the enemy. If he can keep our eyes fixed on this world and “distracted” from keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, then we will be “hindered” and “entangled” in our lives. This world offers so many things that will compete for our attention and affection; consequently, when we feel like God is not addressing certain needs in our lives---for pleasure, peace, and prosperity-----we naturally turn our gaze to anything else that appeals to us. The Master, however, has commanded that we be faithful. We cannot afford to neglect our “vineyard” because we are tired and bored with looking at the same fruit day after day. The little foxes seldom come to the vineyard where there is no fruit. Rather, they wait until the fruit is ripe for harvest! Proverbs 4:23 reminds “Above all else, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life.” We need to be mindful of taking care of what God has given us in this life. We will find ourselves in great danger of ruining the work that He has accomplished in us when we begin to look at His abundant blessings as being nothing more then “common” items that are associated with being a “Christian.” When we are easily distracted by what this world brings our way, we in one sense are telling God, “You’re not enough to hold my attention. I just have to look at this thing over here that is by far more interesting and important!” Believe me, as I write this, I stand guilty of doing this more often than not.

Distractions should indicate an important truth: God is not having His rightful place in our lives. When things take us away from what God has called us to be and has called us to do, we are experiencing life without Him. Our focus moves away from making Him the center of our lives and we make whatever “distraction” we are gazed upon to be the thing that drives us. By doing so, we leave the fruit of our lives vulnerable to the attack of the enemy. How does a godly man or woman fall into sin? It wasn’t because their eyes were “fixed upon Jesus Christ, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.” Each time we choose to look away from God concerning the issues in our lives, we place ourselves in a potentially dangerous situation of having a thief come to “steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10) what God has done in our lives. Remember, in one split second life can become a tragedy; however, to those who will “fix their eyes” upon Jesus and “watch and wait” for their Master, they will never “fall and receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:11).

Throwing Jesus Off A Cliff

If you consider yourself “human” (which I have yet to receive any hits on this blog outside the sphere of our planet), then we should never be surprised as to how people react when they feel threatened, hurt, offended, or angry. It’s not that I am advocating that some of those reactions are justified or warranted, but I am simply expressing the fact that when it comes to our humanity, all of us are capable of doing things which are beyond the confines of what we would consider “normal behavior.” For instance, take an incident which happened around two thousand years ago in which an unruly mob decided that they had enough of someone’s banter and they decided to do something about it. Unfortunately, this someone was Jesus. Luke 4:29 describes their reaction as being “They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built in order to throw him off the cliff.” Apparently, the ministry of Jesus to his hometown synagogue did not result in the congregation having that “kumbaya” feeling that is so prevalent in the church of today. This is the “loving and kind” Jesus! The One who “would never say anything to hurt us and make us uncomfortable” Jesus! What could He had possibly said or done that would cause these callously violent individuals to throw Him off of a cliff?

When Jesus came to the synagogue, He announced the fulfillment of what the prophets of the Old Testament testified of who one day would come to install God’s kingdom on earth. As Jesus quoted Isaiah 61 in saying “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…” (Luke 4:18), the statement and all of the connotations with it echoed the anticipated arrival of the Messiah. Jesus’ action to open and close the scroll and then sitting down, verified his authoritative claim of “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21)----and this is where the problems began. The response was typical of a Sunday morning church crowd in many churches of today, “That was a nice message” and then “let’s critic the pastor!” Those in the synagogue “were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips” (Luke 4:22). There was a great sense of “wondering” why Jesus said what he said and furthermore, appeared to assign himself to the role of Messiah. Their response of “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” was more like our modern day response of “who does he think he is?” They had already heard the reports of what Jesus had done in fulfilling the Scripture which he announced from Isaiah 61 (Luke 4:23) and now, He began to expose the content of their faithless hearts (v.23-27).

As one reads Luke 4:16-30, the question of “Why didn’t they believe Jesus?” comes to mind. Sure, they knew Him as Joseph and Mary’s son, but they also heard of the teachings, healings, and the power of God that flowed through His life. Ironically, many in the church have heard the same stories about Jesus. They know all about who He is and what He has done, and yet, they still have so much unbelief! The problem is simple: “familiarity breeds contempt.” The church of today loves its comfortable and predictable setting. Ours is a world of enjoyable sermons that allow us to sit week after week in the church pew and never be confronted with the truth of needing to submit our lives under the lordship of Christ. We don’t see Jesus as the KING but we see Him as someone just like us and when He asks of us more than what we are willing to give, we no longer want “that kind of Jesus” in our midst!

The Jesus that came to Nazareth was an all too familiar face to those in the synagogue. Because of that, there was no room for Jesus to assert the authority of being Messiah in their lives. Jesus explained to them that those who understood the authority of the prophetic word and chose to submit to it were propelled into a life of freedom (Luke 4:24-27). Jesus said, “Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor” (Matthew 13:57) and the result is that Jesus did “not do many miracles there because their lack of faith” (v.58). Week after week the people of God sit in God’s house and many are not moved by the Spirit of the Lord. We causally stroll into our seats with coffee cups in hand as if we are going to an entertainment venue and we prepare ourselves to go through the same old familiar routine that we do week after week. We’ve mastered the art of being able to have our brain in two places of concentration at the same time (perhaps this is the only supernatural thing that happens in our churches) as we are able to simultaneously read the bulletin while absorbing the truths from the Word of God. We know that the Jesus of “our church” would never point out our weaknesses, flaws, and God forbid, say anything about our “sin.” And if by chance, He would venture through the message of the pastor or a word through the worship leader to “offend” us, then we do what all respectable mature children of God do-----throw Jesus off a cliff!

If we truly want the answer of why we do not see more of the power of God in the church of today we may want to look at the depths of our own hearts. The Spirit of God is not being poured out in power because we do not allow Jesus to be the One who He claims to be! If we actually believed that He is Lord and King then we would cease doing much of the things we do. We would no longer remain the same people we have remained week after week in the church. There would be no such thing as “offense” and when we gathered together for worship, there would be a reverent awe that would fill the church rather than the smell of coffee and the chatter of the latest sporting events. People would not look bored out of their skulls but they would approach the throne of grace with humility, gratitude, and a love for Christ. Furthermore, all agendas would cease except for the one that says, “We just want to glorify our King.” In the end, we truly have to ask ourselves if we want Jesus to be the One who He claimed to be for our lives or are we content with believing something about Him that he never claimed to be? Jesus is not your “friend.” He is not someone who can stoop to that level of familiarity in your life. He cannot be reduced to just another face in the crowd of people in your life----HE IS THE KING OF KING AND LORD OF LORDS! And either you must accept that and respond accordingly or you will continually attempt to rid of his presence in your life by trying to throw Him off of a cliff. If you choose the latter, you will certainly experience what many are experiencing in the Body of Christ, “…he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.” (Luke 4:30).

To the Shame of a Rising Generation

As I am writing this post, I am still processing the events of the weekend in which I spent with 7,000 teenagers who demonstrated to passion to recklessly pursue God. One could make several arguments about some of the things that went on in this massive movement of motivating youth to take their place in the kingdom of God and some of what went on in that arena was in my opinion a waste of time (some of the “bands” chosen to play demonstrated nothing but a strong image of being like the world is an attractive endeavor). There is one thing, however, I still cannot escape and if you are an adult reading this blog, prepare to be rebuked (just as I was rebuked by the Lord)!

There was a moment on the final evening where the youth were challenged to actually abandon themselves and attempt to worship God with every ounce of their being. The speaker spoke of King David who unashamedly became “undignified” before the Lord in a holy pursuit of worshiping the Lord. It was a holy moment but it was full of passion! The place erupted with thousands of teenagers and adult leaders letting themselves go for the sake of simply telling Jesus, “With my entire being, I will love you! ----dancing, shouting, crying out to God as an army of worshipers who wanted to let the General of their Soul know that showing their allegiance to Him was more important than the dignity of their self-image. After things came to a holy hush, I was confronted with one of the most convicting questions I have been asked by the Lord in quite some time: “Why did they have to be motivated to abandon themselves to Me?” 

In that moment, I felt somewhat ashamed. Here is a generation of young people who sit in their churches week after week and seldom to almost never see the worship of adults with such unbridled passion. After all, we’re way to dignified and postured to look like fools in expressing our love to the Creator of the Universe. We like to convince ourselves, “I’m more of the reserved type.” I’ll simply respond with the truth, “You’re a liar.” You are simply more passionate about saving face in keeping your self-image than in losing it for the sake of worshiping God. Sure, many will claim that in the Acquire the Fire atmosphere the music and speaker serve only to “manipulate” the teens to have an emotional experience. If we were not created to be “emotional” in worship then why were you created with emotions? To repress them in order to not be so “radical” in demonstrating your love for God? 

The reason these teens had to be encouraged to “abandon themselves” fully in worship is because the older generation has not taught them to do so. Instead, we want a “respectable “ form of worship that seeks to maintain a “form” of worship but controls the “god of self” from being humbled and even “humiliated” before the One True God. The Bible is full of expressions of worship and yet we pretend that it is much like a menu at a fast food restaurant. We pick and choose the expressions that are comfortable to us and ignore the expressions that actually require a “sacrifice of praise” unto the Lord. Is God not worthy of the sacrifice of our dignity for the sake of giving Him all of ourselves in worship? Does not the Bible admonish us to “Love the Lord your God with ALL your heart, and with ALL your soul, and with ALL your mind, and with ALL your STRENGTH”? (Mark 12:30). Our reserved-ness is killing the spirit of worship in the future generations. What will happen when the day comes as the Bible warns (see Matthew 24-25), when a radical line will have to be drawn in where your allegiance lies? If we’re ashamed to freely worship God in the safety of the Body of Christ----do we think we will stand up for Him with a sword at our throat? We are communicating to this next generation that “worship” is a concept of the mind and that we are not to be moved by God’s presence in a way that radically affects our entire being. We are communicating to this rising generation that Christ is not worth giving ALL to as they observed our posture toward this “GOD” that we claim we “love so much.” We have way too much dignity and pride to be moved with a passion for God to the point where we are visibly showing our complete abandonment to all of our common sense---and yet on a cross, Jesus hung NAKED and SHAMED so that we could even have the privilege to come into the presence of the Lord!   

Why can’t we just be honest to ourselves and to the generation that has watched us model “worship” before them? Why can’t we come to the truth that we really do not love God that much? Why don’t we simply tell them that there are limits as to how far we are willing to go in order to publically acknowledge our love and passion to a God who loves us passionately? We break the heart of God and we do not care! We are raising a generation of young people who will we overly saturated with head knowledge of Jesus, and yet have absolutely no clue as to how to worship and experience this relationship that we claim as being “so wonderful.”  Pastors who quench the expression of worship in your churches SHAME ON YOU FOR GRIEVING THE SPIRIT OF GOD AND SELLING OUT THE RISING GENERATION FOR THE SAKE OF MAINTAINING NUMBERS IN YOUR CHURCH! WORSHIP IS OFFENSIVE TO THOSE WHO DON’T WORSHIP! WORSHIP IS OFFENSIVE WHERE THE SPIRIT OF RELIGION REIGNS! 

2 Samuel 6:23 give us the result of what will happen to the future generation if we fail to model and express worship as it was meant to be before the Lord: “And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.” Do understand the significance of this statement in light of King David dancing undignified before the Lord? Everything dies where free worship is hindered! There is no “next generation” to be raised up when we restrict the spirit of worship in our lives and in the Body of Christ. The lack of truly expressing ourselves in worship speaks to the fact that we are not worshiping. We are in control and if we are in control then we are still on the throne of our heart. I think of the old song, “Be careful little eyes of what you see…” and I realize what those little eyes have been seeing in the church….a pitiful picture of worship. We’re calculated, predictable, scheduled, and comfortable. And worse yet, we’re teaching a rising generation that “lip service” to our King is the most acceptable form of worship. After all young person, even if God takes everything from you in this life, at least you can still hang on to your dignity, as in the church today it is the most important thing. To this rising generation, I ask for your forgiveness in allowing myself to remain dignified in worship. To those I have led in worship for so long, forgive me for the times I have remained reserved and not allowed my passion to worship God to shine through my life. Finally, to my Lord and my God, I ask you to forgive me for allowing myself to be concerned about my image over Yours and may I never aspire to save my face for the sake of seeking Yours.

Welcome to the Masquerade

The concept of a masquerade party is an interesting thought when it comes to the Christian life. As people gather together at a masquerade party, they mingle while at the same time conceal their true identity by keeping a mask over their face. It becomes a world in which everyone is the same-----a room full of people who are playing a game of “guess who I really am.” The idea is to remain as hidden, inconspicuous, and anonymous as possible by not revealing too much about the person behind the mask. Otherwise, once you’re discovered, you have to reveal the person who was hiding behind the masquerade.  But what does this have to due with the Christian life? According to Paul, this is a very real scenario for believers to find themselves in the midst of the world they live.

The Corinthians were such a people who chose to live in the masquerade of the Christian life. Paul expressed that when it came to the difference between those who are experiencing life in the Spirit and those who remain in the world, that those without the Spirit were blinded or for our purposes, “masked” from seeing the truth. He writes, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). The idea that Paul conveys when he suggests that those in the world are “spiritually discerned” is that they cannot make a proper judgment about the things of the Spirit. Much like a jury that enters a courtroom with no knowledge of what the details of a trial holds, so those without the Spirit have no clue as to what exists in the mind of God. God’s mind is hidden from them but the man of the Spirit has “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16). Like the Corinthians, we are probably thankful for the fact that we have the “Spirit” and we have been given the “mind of Christ;” however, does this mean that we are not ever “masked” from seeing the truth of God?

In the very next breath, Paul states to the Corinthians, “Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly…” (1 Corinthians 3:1). In other words, Paul just explained that the “spiritual man” knows the mind of Christ while the man in the “world” does not and his rebuke tells the Corinthians that they are also blind to the things of the Spirit.  This was the major reason for all of the dysfunction in the Corinthian church. There was fornication, division, disorder, power struggles, prejudices, and an inability to understand how the Spirit was to function in the midst of the church body. The real issue in Corinth was that although they were “Christian” they chose to dress themselves up with the culture that surrounded them and thus, entered into the masquerade! If you continue to read the Corinthian story, you will discover that although they began to address some of these situations, 2 Corinthians reveals that false teaching begins to enter into the church (see 2 Corinthians 10-12). How does this happen? Simple. If a people in a church do not refrain from worldliness, they are unable to discern falsehood from the truth and the result is the embracing of things that are not from the Spirit of God.

Have we ever stopped to wonder why week after week and month after month churches continue to merely exist in what feels like an endless cycle of familiarity and routine? Corinth, as charismatic as it was, continued to “do church” in a way that they felt they should and yet, the Apostle Paul recognized that things needed to change. In our day, if someone suggests that we are “off track” or that what we are doing in our churches is not “spiritual” we tend to dismiss that individual as being “judgmental” or “legalistic.” After all, how dare they suggest that we cannot understand what God wants us to do because we are being too worldly in the overall environment of the church! No one should have a right to challenge the “freedom” we have in Christ-----isn’t that what we say? Forget the fact that some of those “freedoms” we dearly hold on to are products of embracing the worldly culture around us. Forget the fact that those “freedoms” we relish in are patterned after the philosophies and attitudes of worldly thinking. We simply want to believe what we want to believe and unfortunately, even if we don’t have the mind of Christ in the mix, we still believe in our right to believe it!

The problem, however, is that we have forgotten an all too important truth: we can still grieve the Holy Spirit of God. We can try to rationalize or justify our worldly tendencies just as the Corinthians did and pretend that what we are doing is right on track with making us the most spiritual of people. We can continue to taint our reputation as followers of Christ by presenting to the world a Jesus who is into all of the worldly activities that we pursue. After all, Jesus being free, would definitely sit himself down in front of a violent sex-laden “R” rated movie or relish in the music of our culture that celebrates much of what breaks the heart of God. The Corinthians sought this pseudo-expression of Christianity by believing they could worship in God’s temple while also enjoying the worship at the cult temples. This is why Paul reminds the Corinthians that they are “the temple of the Holy Spirit” two times in the book (1 Corinthians 3:16 and 6:19). The context of his first usage includes that idea that we need to be careful as to what we build our lives upon as he warns the church that anyone who causes “division” in God’s temple, God will “destroy” him. Does worldliness cause division in the Body of Christ? Does an attitude that infects a congregation which suggests “don’t judge me and allow me to keep pretending that my sin is perfectly acceptable” bring unity to the Body of Christ? This is why perhaps Paul had to remind a second time in the context of engaging in the temple cult worship that God cannot be joined with the world---the two cannot co-exist.

The overall problem of the masquerade is that we have come to believe that “who I am” in Christ is the finality of the Christian life. While I believe that “who I am” in Christ stands at the foundation of my faith, it does not eliminate the importance of “what I do” as a believer. We have masked ourselves in the church for too long from the truth that “WHAT I DO” affects “WHO I AM”----because “what I do” affects my ability to hear from God, please God, and ultimately worship God. Jesus and the apostles have made something abundantly clear in Scripture: the worst place to be in life is in being someone who knows who they are in Christ and yet chooses not to live in a way that shows they are in Christ. We may be “free” but God still holds us accountable for WHAT we do (1 Corinthians 3:11-16, 6:9-19). If we want to continue to embrace the “ways of culture” over the “way of the cross” we will discover something when we come to the end of that journey. We will find that we have been caught in a masquerade that has hidden us from an abundant life in the Spirit. We will discover that we have missed God while attending the ball. We will experience the pain of realizing that “we thought” we were heading in the right direction only to end up lost in the woods when the passenger that was with us all the time was telling us where to go. It’s time to remove the mask and see ourselves for who we are. It’s time to stop hiding behind the disguise of a worldly faith and accept the truth of WHO WE ARE TO BE in this world-----a people who are holy, separate and commanded to “come out from among them” so that God can receive us as “sons and daughters” (2 Corinthians 6:14-18). If we fail to do so, we will never come to the place in our lives where we can discern the difference between the precious voice of the Lord and the voice of the world that seeks to deceive us.

The Beautiful World of Surrender

As I was driving this morning on my way to work, I was confronted with a question from the Lord that I believe we seldom ever want to think about or answer---“When will you surrender all?” It was one of those “out of the blue” moments where as I was turning the van into a parking lot it was as if the Lord suddenly appeared in the passenger seat and said, “By the way, when will you surrender all?” Take a moment and consider that question for yourself. Now, take even a longer moment and think about it in all honesty, considering your life in light of Scripture, and in examining all of the things in your life that truly do not matter. I can imagine that like myself, if you’re reading this blog the many excuses for justifying the stagnant, secular, and selfish pursuits in your life are starting to come to mind. In fact, we have become the experts of creating our own definition as to what “surrender” means according to God. Like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, I can already hear my flesh asking, “Did God really say…?”

I find it interesting that in all four gospels Jesus makes this statement to his disciples, “for whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it” (Matthew 16:25, see also Matthew 10:39, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24, 17:33, and John 12:25). What does this tell us? The obvious answer is two fold: first, Jesus most definitely said it and secondly, it must have been something of great importance to us if all of the gospel writers included it in their witness. The problem, however, is what we want to do with Jesus’ admonition to “lose our lives” for His sake. The word “lose” in this passage carries the idea of “putting out of the way entirely or abolishing.” When Jesus points out that the man who wants to “save” his life will lose it, he is referring to the idea that this person is saving himself from suffering and danger while doing everything he can to preserve or rescue his life. In essence, Jesus gives us a picture of a person who is doing everything he can to avoid the life of suffering that comes from truly giving our lives to God. The suffering I am speaking of is one that comes from the denying of one’s flesh. The flesh, when it is denied, desires desperately to be rescued safely back into its comfortable place of indulgence and control. Although God gave man dominion, man wants to rule! He is not satisfied with being the “manager” of what God has given him in life; rather, he would be more comfortable being the “dictator” over all that happens in and to his life. This is the struggle of humanity-----the struggle to maintain control.

We could sit here and argue over what exactly Jesus was trying to say when he submitted that we need to “lose” our lives. We could pretend that He is not interested in the everyday activities of our lives such as what we watch, eat, listen to, and how we use our time. We could convince ourselves that Jesus is only concerned with our “surrender” when it comes to our “spirituality” and that our physical lives are our own to do as we please. Jesus, however, said that “if a kingdom is divided against, that kingdom cannot stand” (Mark 3:24).  When Jesus spoke those words, he was explaining that it is impossible for two ruling influences to be in power at the same time in one’s life. Jesus was accused doing things by the authority of Satan while at the same time, manifesting things in his life that could only come from the authority of God. The most important thing we should note is this: we cannot have our lives both ways. Either God is God in our lives or someone else is seated upon the throne of our hearts. The ultimate proof of this is seen in our willingness or unwillingness to surrender to the Lord. Ultimately, one needs to consider what the chief goal in life actually is: is it to live for one’s self or is it to completely live for Christ?

Many of us would say that it would be to live for Christ; however, our claims are tattered with the notion that we only live for Him in a way that we still get so much of the say with what we do with our time, energy, and resources in this life. In other words, He is our source to the kingdom of God but we remain our own source while on this earthly kingdom. For me, one of the most amazing statements that Jesus made was “by myself I can do nothing…” (John 5:30). Jesus did not simply come to earth to live a good and sinless life to die on a cross-----he also came as an example to be followed or as He put it “the way, the truth, and the life…” (John 14:6). Jesus demonstrated that in all He did, He did only what His Father told Him to do (John 5:19). Did that mean everything He did in life He considered His relationship with the Father? Scripture DOES NOT suggest otherwise! We are the ones who suggest to ourselves that there are areas of our lives where we can call the shots or as I call it, “having our own little kingdom apart from God where we can rule and reign.” Whatever gave us the idea that we have the option that we can do what we want when we want and still follow Christ? Does that mean I have to consult God about things as simple as eating my three plus meals a day? Would we have any weight problems or food related illnesses if we did? If we consulted the Lord for every penny we spent would we have financial issues in our lives? We think we can make decisions a part from God but as Proverbs so eloquently puts it “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12, 16:25).

I in no way have “arrived” in this pursuit of surrender----and it is a pursuit! My life is surrounded by the things that give me a false sense of well being and help me avoid the unnecessary suffering of my flesh. If I get bored, rather than finding pleasure in God I find something to entertain me. If my flesh is hungry after I had just eaten a substantial meal, I calm it’s suffering by feeding it what it doesn’t need. I am not trying to promote asceticism but I am trying to help us consider how much of our lives are under our control rather than the control of the Spirit of the Lord. Surrender is more than a lofty ideal in the Christian faith. It is the expected ideal for fully experiencing the fruit that comes from knowing Christ. Jesus said, “If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Our own initiatives in life result in “nothing” of value in this life or the next. We must be intimately connected to Christ in all that we do in life. Doing that, however, is only found in the difficult task of surrender. We can do many things in the kingdom of God but there is no greater expression of worshiping the Lord than to give Him all of our lives. This is a day-by-day and moment-by-moment choice; however, it is the ONLY WAY we can truly become all that God has intended us to be as it is the ONLY WAY we can come to know the true riches of becoming like Christ in all that he did. I have a long way to go but go I begin to enter into the beautiful world of surrender.