THE FUTURE IS HERE

THE FUTURE IS HERE
THE GOSPEL OF JESUS IS GOOD NEWS

Thursday, October 4, 2012

The Upward Call to Downward Mobility

       We human beings apparently have a deep need to be recognized, appreciated and honored.  I supposed it goes with the turf of being human.  However, as important as this might be, Jesus seems to raise a point that says to his disciples, BE CAREFUL with that kind of need.  It can be rise up and bite you if not harnessed and controlled.
            In this we need to remember that Jesus isn’t calling us to be slothful or unmotivated or lazy but He is calling us to be careful.  Our desire to win, to be first, to get ahead, can be so strong that it pushes even God to the side in it’s zeal to claim the prize. 
      In Luke 14:7-14 Jesus speaks a parable that tells us that the so called “Prize” may not be all its cracked up to be; and, He instructs His disciples not to be persons who seek out the place of honor and recognition. He seems to call His people simply to live their lives in humility and honesty, before God and man, without a sense of fanfare and crowd appreciation.   
            Look at verse 8-9
When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, 'Give your place to this man,' and then in disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place.       
            Several months ago Michaele and Tareq Salahi crashed a party at the Whitehouse, causing more distress with security forces than we can imagine.  Why did they do that?  They had a need to be recognized, a need to be in the in group, a new for place, honor and recognition.   Jesus tells us not to crash the party.  If we’re invited go ahead and go but don’t play the “I’ve got clout” card.  Just find a place, and enjoy the event.  If they want you up front, they’ll call for you. 
             
       Look at verses 10-11.
 But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

            We ought not to be about the business of exalting ourselves.  We ought to just go about being who we are, being grateful that we’ve been invited; not pushing ourselves on people so that we can get the really important seat.
            Then look at verses 11-14 where Jesus takes this thought to an even deeper level.  In these verses He says,
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
And He also went on to say to the one who had invited Him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment.
But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

      Do you see where Jesus is taking us?  He is taking us to the place of servanthood and faithful living.  Don’t just matriculate with the wealthy, the haves, the powerful, the rich.  Remember that Jesus came to touch the lives of the poor, the needy, the broken, the hurting, the marginalized.  He treated everybody the same and most of His close friends where from the poor or working class.  He didn’t hobnob with the powers that be.  He simply took His place with the folks, and considered them to be as important as anyone else on the face of the earth.

            The key verse in all this seems to be Luke 14:11 where Jesus says,

“Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled;
and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

            This is not quite the way the world operates is it? The world seems to operate like this to some degree or another:
            Don’t be humble or people will walk all over you. 
            It’s every man for himself; I like you but don’t get in my way. 
            It’s the survival of the fittest, so get fit or get out.
            Or, maybe it’s just, “I’m going to get to the top of my world no matter what it takes.           
            But have you noticed how differently Jesus does life and how differently the life is to which Jesus calls us?
            The truth is that we followers of Jesus ought to be doing life a whole lot differently than those who do not follow Jesus.  We live in a different kingdom by a different set of values.  The old songs says, ‘I’d rather have Jesus than men’s applause.” A true disciples of Jesus knows exactly and precisely what that means. 
            And remember this, too.  It’s not that Jesus calls us to beat up on ourselves or to feed our low self-esteem or to develop some unhealthy self-destroying philosophy of life.  Just the opposite in fact.
            Jesus calls us to greatness.  He has gifted us and equipped us to do amazing things with our lives.  There is no debating it , and to play it down or to deny it would be insulting to God, our Creator.  False humility is not humility at all.  It is a slap in the face of the cross, and a denial of a Biblical truth expressed by David when he said in Psalm 139, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (14).  You are, and don’t you ever forget it. 
            What Jesus is doing is calling us to live out our creation and our creative capacities from within an arena of His incomparable love.  In I Corinthians 13 Paul says, “Love…does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly…does not seek its own” (vs. 4-5).  Love goes about its business, doing what it does and doing it in the Mind and Spirit of Jesus who “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8).  It was in and through His self-giving that Jesus brought grace into the deepest needs of the human being.  Now, we are called upon to live in the same of humility.
            In that act of obedience we are free not to be overly consumed by worldly concerns but free to live to the glory of God.   
            We are free to be the kind of person this world desperately needs. 
            We are free to manifest the life of Jesus in us. 
            We don’t have to have the accolades.  We don’t have to set at the place of honor.  We don’t have to be recognized.  Instead, we go about our faithfulness business living for God and God alone. 
            We’ll quietly take our place and if they want us, they’ll call us.  And, if they don’t call us we’ll enjoy the party from the back row, which is where most of the fun takes place anyway.  They know our phone number and they know our address and if they need us, they’ll find a way to get a hold of us.  In the mean time, we’ll just enjoy our relationship with God.  We’ll live in the glory of the grace that has come to us in Jesus.  We’ll live in the power of the Holy Spirit and experience His gracious fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
            There is a wonderful word from Jesus in John 12:26 where He says, “If anyone serve Me, the Father will honor him.”  Isn’t that, in the end, the most important thing to us, not to be honored by men so much as to know that the Father is in our story, that He is pleased by our passion to serve Jesus, and that our lives are in a place where true honor is bestowed, the kind of honor that God gives?  Don’t you want to hear God say to you someday, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25: 21, 23 – NIV)?
            What Jesus is talking about in Matthew 25 and in Luke 14 is a life of true humility.  Disciples who go about their business without fanfare and the need to be recognized do more good for the kingdom of God then we could ever imagine.  Somebody said one time that there was no telling how much good could be done if it didn’t matter who got the credit.  But, credit matters in this world, doesn’t it?  There is an ego need to make sure what is mine is recognized as mine.  The theme for many people is, “I want what I want when I want it, and if I don’t get, I’ll find a way to get it anyway.”  That kind of attitude ought to be light years away from anybody who names the name of Jesus as their Savior and Lord.
            As you may know for many years Sir Walter Scott was the leading literary figure in the British Empire.  It was agreed upon by most people that no one could write as well as he.   Then, one day, the works of Lord Byron began to appear, and people began to recognize their greatness.  Not long after Byron works began to appear an anonymous critic praised his poems in a London newspaper.  The anonymous critic declared that in the presence of these brilliant works of poetic genius, Sir Walter Scott could no longer be considered the leading poet of England.  It was later discovered that the unnamed critic had been none other than Sir Walter Scott himself!
           
            Humility is an awesome trait.  In the kingdom of God it’s a mark of a true relationship with God.  It is a sign that one has truly connected their lives with God, and that the life of God lives in them.  In that place one can go about life with a freedom that can’t be matched.  There is no agenda to defend, no sides to take, mo thrones to pursue.  In Christ, life is filled with the glory of God, and we go about being who we are knowing that there is only one honor we seek and that is the honor that comes from God.  We’ll be faithful in what we do and we can to another day when Jesus will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

            All my life I’ve tried to be faithful to what I know to do.  I suspect that is your story, too.  Sometimes I succeeded and sometimes I failed.  I suspect that is your story, too.  The world will only look at the success and failure columns.  It can’t see inside your heart or mine.  Only God can see us at that level.  God knows our heart and He sees the longing of our soul to be who He wants us to be and to do what He would have us to do.   So it is, the world could easily say to us, you have failed and at the same time God will be saying to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” 
            You see we haven’t been called to be successful but we have been called to be faithful.  And faithfulness means that we have placed our lives into the hands of God.  That’s where we live.  So, we don’t have to take the place of recognition.  We don’t have to crash the party to feel our worth.  We don’t have to sit up front to feel that we matter.  We don’t have to have the honor of the crowd.  We simply go about our business living our lives and doing our work in the name that means more to us than any other name, the name of Jesus.  And, we do it knowing the promise of Jesus, “if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him” (John 12:26).  Isn’t that a remarkable promise that, in and of itself, is enough for us.
            It is enough for us isn’t it? 
            Jesus is Lord in our lives, and that is enough. 
            The Holy Spirit fills us with the life of God, and that is enough.   
            God has come into our brokenness and made all things new, and that is enough.
            Anything short of the honor that comes from God is unimportant.  God has called us to Himself and Jesus Is our Lord. 
            What is it the old Irish hymn says?
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise.
Thou mine in inheritance, now and always.
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, My Treasure Thou art.



Friday, September 28, 2012

A powerful word from Oswald Chambers found in My Utmost For His Highest; February 8 reading:
 
The Cost of Sanctification
May the God of peace Himself
sanctify you completely . . .

When we pray, asking God to sanctify us, are we prepared to measure up to what that really means? We take the word sanctification much too lightly. Are we prepared to pay the cost of sanctification? The cost will be a deep restriction of all our earthly concerns, and an extensive cultivation of all our godly concerns. Sanctification means to be intensely focused on God’s point of view. It means to secure and to keep all the strength of our body, soul, and spirit for God’s purpose alone. Are we really prepared for God to perform in us everything for which He separated us? And after He has done His work, are we then prepared to separate ourselves to God just as Jesus did? “For their sakes I sanctify Myself . . .” (John 17:19). The reason some of us have not entered into the experience of sanctification is that we have not realized the meaning of sanctification from God’s perspective. Sanctification means being made one with Jesus so that the nature that controlled Him will control us. Are we really prepared for what that will cost? It will cost absolutely everything in us which is not of God.

Are we prepared to be caught up into the full meaning of Paul’s prayer in this verse? Are we prepared to say, “Lord, make me, a sinner saved by grace, as holy as You can”? Jesus prayed that we might be one with Him, just as He is one with the Father (see John 17:21-23). The resounding evidence of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life is the unmistakable family likeness to Jesus Christ, and the freedom from everything which is not like Him. Are we prepared to set ourselves apart for the Holy Spirit’s work in us?

My Utmost For His Highest
Oswald Chambers
February 8

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Light and Day people

I Thessalonians 5:5 tells us that the people of Jesus are sons and daughters of light and day.  For this reason Paul calls Jesus' people to be alert and sober.  In these dangerous days, this is good advice.

Because we are people of Jesus we are called to "Put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation" (I Thes. 5:8).  There we see it again -- Faith, hope and love. 

What does it mean to be a son or daughter of light and day?  It means that we live and move and have our being in the faith, hope, and love that come when one's life is enveloped by the life of Jesus.

The days are dangerous days but Jesus is Lord.  His life trumps everything else so much so that we don't have to be victimized by the times in which we live.  Rather, we can live with a Jesus-driven alertness that continually draws us to the Father's heart.

Remember, "God has not destined us for wrath,  but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Thes. 5:9). 

Saturday, July 16, 2011

People are so different.  We come in all shapes and sizes and colors.  We all have many similarities but each of us is unique, too.  Each of us pursues life and processes information in our own way.  We have our own opinions and ideas about everything.                                                                                          

The human condition doesn't change when it comes to spiritual things.  Jesus names four different types of responses people make to the Gospel.  He describes them as being people of "the road…the rocky places… the thorns, and… the good soil ."                                                                                                   
The people of the road don't understand the Gospel, and the enemy shuts it down in their lives.  The people of the rocky places hear and receive the Gospel but have no depth and when affliction or persecution comes they fall away.  The people of the thorns hears the Gospel but the pressures of living in the world, particularly when it comes to money, overpower them and the Gospel remains powerless in them.  The people of the good soil hear and understand the implications and ramifications of the Gospel, embrace it fully, and let the fruit of God flow through them.                                                                                              
These folks are not four different kinds of Christians.  In Jesus' list there is only one who follows him and it is the one of the good soil.  "He who has ears, let him hear" (Matt. 13:9).                   

It is our conviction as Christians that the Gospel is so real and powerful that it trumps everything in life.  Therefore we embrace Jesus as Savior and Lord, and we live in the power of His life.  The ways of God are our ways, too.  In Him we live and move and exist (Acts. 27:28).  We say YES to what God is about in the world.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

In Weakness Made Strong

Each of us is powerless to be effective for Christ in our worlds. We simply don't have what it takes to touch a disinterested and distracted world for God. However (and this is huge), we don't have to have what it takes. We simply need to be in Jesus because as we abide in Him He is able to release the power of God.

Apart from Jesus we can do nothing but in Him we will be like a healthy branch in a healthy vine, bearing the fruit of God's amazing love. In this way we will bring glory to the Father, Jesus will give us His joy, the Holy Spirit will be able to freely work in and through our lives, and our joy will then be complete. Stay close to Jesus and enjoy the journey.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

WHEN GOD SHOWED UP

God's In-Christ people, filled with the Holy Spirit, spoke "of the mighty deeds of God." Result? The people "were amazed and astonished." 3000 of them joined up and became followers of the One who amazes and astonishes. What a mighty God we serve.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Oswald Chambers spoke to my heart today, so I thought I would pass it on.

The Explanation For Our Difficulties
My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers
May 22

. . . that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us . . . —John 17:21

If you are going through a time of isolation, seemingly all alone, read John 17 . It will explain exactly why you are where you are— because Jesus has prayed that you “may be one” with the Father as He is. Are you helping God to answer that prayer, or do you have some other goal for your life? Since you became a disciple, you cannot be as independent as you used to be.

God reveals in John 17 that His purpose is not just to answer our prayers, but that through prayer we might come to discern His mind. Yet there is one prayer which God must answer, and that is the prayer of Jesus— “. . . that they may be one just as We are one ... ” (John 17:22). Are we as close to Jesus Christ as that?

God is not concerned about our plans; He doesn’t ask, “Do you want to go through this loss of a loved one, this difficulty, or this defeat?” No, He allows these things for His own purpose. The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, and nobler men and women, or they are making us more critical and fault-finding, and more insistent on our own way. The things that happen either make us evil, or they make us more saintly, depending entirely on our relationship with God and its level of intimacy. If we will pray, regarding our own lives, “Your will be done” (Matthew 26:42), then we will be encouraged and comforted by John 17, knowing that our Father is working according to His own wisdom, accomplishing what is best. When we understand God’s purpose, we will not become small-minded and cynical. Jesus prayed nothing less for us than absolute oneness with Himself, just as He was one with the Father. Some of us are far from this oneness; yet God will not leave us alone until we are one with Him— because Jesus prayed, “. . . that they all may be one . . . .”