Change and Allow for Change

3 John 9, 10 "I wrote to the church, but Diotrophes, who loves to be first, will have nothing to do with us. So if I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, gossiping maliciously about us. Not satisfied with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church."

Luke 9:49 " 'Master,' said John, 'we saw a man driving out demons in Your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.' "

This is one of the last letters John writes, and it shows a great change in his life from his early training and discipleship under Christ. He is addressing a church situation and confronts three issues with this Diotrophes:

1. He loves to be first.
2. He refuses to welcome brothers.
3. He wanted to stop those doing the work of Jesus.

Hmmmm. Let's go back in time. John wanted to be first (asking Jesus if he could sit at His right hand); John refused to welcome brothers (Luke 9:49) ; and John wanted to stop those doing the work of Christ (again, Luke 9:49 ). He even wanted to call down lightning from the sky to destroy the Samaritans who had rejected them. So, John, do you really have the right to make these statements?

Yes he does. Because he was changed.

My point is not to condemn John, but to praise the work of the Holy Spirit who can truly change a heart. John was completely turned around in his thinking. Again - this is an encouraging thing. We can and should change when we're wrong. We should be growing until the day we die. And we should allow for this growth in others instead of locking them into the place where we first encountered them.

Allow for this change in yourself. Be open to the fresh teaching of Christ. You may be wrong in what you're thinking right now and be prepared to let His Spirit work this out in you. I've always said that the most effective testimony of the work of the Spirit is when an entrenched Christian changes. When the bitterness of an older Christian is washed away. When a long-formed habit is broken. When dull eyes are opened. We expect newer Christians to be dynamically changing, but as exciting as this is to watch, I truly believe it is more powerful when the previously "discipled" Christian comes to a higher place in their walk.

Bi-Focal Ministry

I hate growing old. I hate the fact that I can't see up close or far away anymore, that whatever object I'm looking at has to be the perfect distance away or I have to use either my near-sighted glasses or my far-sighted glasses. I haven't yet resorted to bi-focals, but I know that they're coming.

In ministry, I'm really having trouble with this concept. I have people on the 'outside' and my heart on the 'inside' hammering away at the big pictures in the Kingdom - things like racial reconciliation, abortion rights, family values, etc. Dave C. wrote a great post on his blog about the situation in Darfur and how the injustice is burning in his heart. This morning at breakfast, he felt like he brought some of the guys down with this discussion, but that's not true. It's the injustice in the world that brings us down. We need to be reminded of these things, that there are global problems brought on by man's sinful nature.

But on the other hand, most of the people I deal with are in need of something more short-term. Addictions, marriage problems, children run amok, relationships that are breaking their hearts, health issues that are killing them, money and job problems . . . . they can't see beyond the end of their noses and I'm having trouble discerning where my focus should be. Should I look at them or beyond them? Darfur or "I need a job."??

It's like I have two sets of glasses that I have to keep exchanging - the one that allows me to see further and the one that allows me to focus on the things right in front of me. It's hard to know when to take one off and put on the other. Honestly, I don't know how Jesus did it - solving the Big Picture while dealing with individuals. But here's the thing: He never left even one person by the side of the road while dealing with the "salvation of man." That's a good place to start.

Limitless Faith

Read Luke 17:1-10

Just read this passage, because there is not much more that I can add. It begins with Jesus blowing the limits off our faith by telling us to forgive someone who asks EVERY TIME they ask. This is beyond us. It goes against every natural instinct. The apostles are so blown away by this teaching that they can only say, "Increase our faith."

I love that response. "Increase our faith." It should be the response to every teaching of Christ that we read. If we aren't challenged to the core of our being by His every word, then we're really not reading it with an open heart, we're reading it with our pre-constructed viewpoints that are comfortable to us. In a true ready, every passage should produce: "Increase my faith!"

Then Christ says that forgiveness is our 'duty' in the sense that we should not expect a big slap on the back for extending a hand of mercy to someone, even an enemy. Why? Because that's exactly what He extended to us, while we were His enemies, while we were 'yet sinners.' What else should our response be, but to reach out our hands in love and forgiveness. After all, "We are unworthy servants, we have only done our duty."

Increase my faith!

Take Responsibility

Exodus 32:4 "He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool."

Exodus 32:24 "So I told them, 'whoever has any jewelry , take it off.' Then they gave me the gold and I threw it into the fire and out came this calf!'"

Moses is up on the mountain and the Israelites can't stand the wait, so they ask Aaron to make a calf, and he does. He makes exactly what they ask him to make. But when Moses comes down and sees this, sees that they couldn't wait for the presence of the Lord, he confronts Aaron. Aaron's excuse is timeless: It's not my fault - it just happened!

Sin doesn't just happen. We fashion it with a tool. Our mind. Our hands. Our mouth. Our heart.

One of the key steps to spiritual growth is the simple acknowledgment that we did it. We thought about it and we made exactly what we thought about making. We did what we set out to do. It didn't just pop out of the fire.

Unlearning at the Feet of the Unteacher

I Corinthians 6:7 "Why not rather be wronged?"

Well, I'll tell you why: Because it goes against everything I've learned since the moment I entered into this world. We've been taught, even in Christian circles, to fight for our rights, our way of life, the forms of our religion, etc.

Even as a young boy in church, we would play the other churches in basketball, and at that early age they cultivated in me an "us vs. them" mentality . . . . about other Christian churches! Playing sports growing up taught me the same thing: To fight for my space. The church-church conflict and the brother-brother conflict were ingrained in me every step of the way. Again - this is within the church body.

This played out in every area of my life, from competing for the academic prizes, the athletic trophies, the 20 feet of pavement in front of me when I'm driving - all the way to how I dealt with my brother in church and other churches in my area. I was a competitive mess. Their gain only meant one thing - my loss. And I could never allow that to happen.

Then I decided to truly sit at the feet of the Master. To read the life and words of Christ under the power of the Holy Spirit. And I learned a strange thing: He wasn't so much a teacher as He was an unteacher. I didn't so much learn things as unlearn them. Things like true forgiveness and reconciliation, putting my brother before me, setting aside my rights. When Paul writes, "Why not rather be wronged?" he is saying something so counter-intuitive to how we've been raised that it almost sounds like he's making a joke!!

But he's not. He's echoing the words of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, the magnum opus on what a true Christian life really looks in this world. Every time I read it, I unlearn something new. As contradictory as that statement sounds, it's what I feel happening to me as He removes deeply imbedded "truths" and replaces it with The Truth.

Why not rather be wronged, if it means someone else will be righted?

To the Point of Blood

Hebrews 12:4 "In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood."

II Corinthians 7:10 "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death."

In my current studies of I Samuel, I am struck by God's interaction with Eli. When Eli found out that his sons were doing things that were clearly against the word of the Lord, he confronted them and rebuked them harshly: "Why do you do such things I hear from all the people about these wicked deeds of yours. No, my sons; it is not a good report that I hear spreading among the Lord's people. . . " This, on the surface, appears to be the appropriate response of a father in a situation like this, when he has two grown sons living apart from the Word.

However, when young Samuel is given his message, the Lord says to Eli: "I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about, his sons made themselves contemptible and he failed to restrain them." (3:14)

And there's the difference. And there's why we have so many Christians living such sorry lives. Because they get all worked up over their sin, acknowledging it, crying over it, even repenting - but they never go to the point of shedding blood over it. They never restrain it.

Eli should have cut off his boys instead of simply confronting them. He should have restrained them, not rebuked them. The sin in our life is worth a boatload of tears, but if all we do is acknowledge it and cry over it, we are not going to have victory. All we are is full of regret - a terrible place to dwell.

I think it's time that we began the actual holiness process in our lives, confronting and eliminating the sin. Renounce them.

Proverbs 28:13 "He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy."

The Co-Lapse of The American Church

In I Corinthians we are shown that the wisdom of this age (or any age) is not sufficient to accomplish what Christ is doing, the building of God’s kingdom. It is always, in every day and age, something completely radical. There is no age that will align with the teachings and wisdom of Christ. He is always counter-cultural, for the simple reason that the true core of any culture will always be man-centered. Always. And Christ oozes compassion and community building which goes against the ultimate end of a self-centered humanity.

I was reading a book that was talking about how the white American church has been used to having what the author called a 'home-field advantage,' and how this has been the cause of so much of the inclusiveness and the shallow evangelism that has been going on. We've become 'maintenance men.' But "we" (guilty as charge - I'm a white American Christian male) have been steadily losing that advantage. The culture has claimed our Sundays through work/sports/leisure. Our political issues have been failing at a steady rate. The Christian media filters for tv and music are being removed. It's collapsing around us.

As I stated in my last posting, this is a good thing in many ways, as it's revealed so much of our flawed thinking. Our lapse has led to this collapse. I'm glad for my four kids - because I want them to think in a much broader, less self-centered way when it comes to the true kingdom that Christ came to establish. I want them to feel a little less at home in this world. I want them to find a community of true disciples of Christ who have compassion and humility and are led by the Spirit, not by a desperate church clinging to the structure that was built with its limited vision.

I want them to find Christ in all of His fullness.

Fissures of Men

The crumbling economy has produced some positive side effects: the thieves have been exposed, the cracks in the foundation have been revealed.. It had to happen sooner or later and now (maybe) we can start the process all over and correct these deviations.

The same is true of the American Church. It's splintering, fracturing, falling apart. And I believe it's a good thing. The thieves are being exposed. The false foundation is being revealed. The self-centered maintenance men who have created this problem are being flushed out. The wood, hay and stubble is being tossed to the floor and revealed for what it is. Now maybe we can get back on mission - the true mission of Jesus.

First things first: we have to stop witnessing to the box - the pre-established criteria of church. We build the structure, identify people who would look and fit in that structure, and target them as our "field" to harvest so that we can build the church in our image, and then we expend every available resource maintaining this box. Christ never operated that way. Everyone was part of the 'field.' The true Church blows wherever the Wind leads it.

Read the Gospels like you've never read them before. See how Christ really went about His business. In Luke 8 He made a religious ruler with a dying daughter stand to the side as He passionately dealt with a fringe woman who had been ostracized by the institution this man ruled over. He made this man wait and watch as He revealed the true heart of His mission. Is this how we truly see things? Is this how the 'church' really operates?

Don't simply get out of the way in frustration. That's not a valid option. I hate the saying that we should get out of the way and let Christ go to work. If we are aware enough to identify that there is a problem, then we need to get straightened out and get in the Way. In the Truth. In the Life.

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