Called to Love

I just stopped in to visit a friend from Maple City Chapel. The guy is in a wheelchair because he had his leg amputated above the knee due to issues with circulation. More recently he almost lost his left foot as well. Besides the fact that all of this has caused increased stress in an already stressful family situation, his medical conditions are background information.

Over the last few months I've had the opportunity to work with their son (16yrs) who has some pretty interesting views towards life and an amazing ability to bring the topic of girls he finds attractive into almost any genre of discussion. God has done some awesome things in the life of this guy and his family in the last few months, things I wouldn't have expected to find. Frankly, things I don't think God expected me to try to accomplish.

Lately I've had reaffirmed in my mind the idea that God doesn't call us to change people (that's His job); but he does call us to drastically love and serve people. I have to think about a few specific people that I've tried to change over the years. I think I have spent too much time trying to change them, and not enough time simply loving them as Jesus loved them. Had I done that I probably would actually have seen more results and less frustration on my part.

I was reading through Mark this morning. Jesus called people to a changed life, but He seemed more concerned with loving them first, simply having compassion. Ok so he did yell at some people, but he ended up yelling at the important, well to do, leaders of the time. I think I've flipped the example around.

It's easy to get frustrated and try to yell some common sense into people. Unfortunately common sense doesn't change a heart, just some actions. God is interested in changing hearts, he does that through our love for others.

I need to learn to love. No I take that back, I need to learn to love others. I already tend to do too good of a job at loving myself.

Finding What I'm not Looking For.

Colossians 3:1-3

So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective.

It seems sometimes -much of the time- that ministry happens when we aren't even looking for it.

The last few days have been rather ordinary and yet complete. I have found myself stopping continually and focusing on the moment. Each moment has not simply been a moment where I need God to get through it; each moment has been in itself opportunity to connect with the creator, a moment to spend with Him, a moment in itself equally as important as any other.

Yesterday I was blessed to be used in one of the most meaningful ministry opportunities I have ever experienced. After lunch I took off from work and was going to run some errands when I received a phone call. Long story short, I had the opportunity to help a son open up his heart to his father. I was blessed to see a son forgive his father, tell him he loved him, and give him a hug. I feel ridiculously blessed to be a part of what my Father is doing.

Funny thing is this blessing came when I really wasn't looking for it, just as with the seeming explosion of ministry opportunities that have happened in the past three months. I have tried to make myself preoccupied with God, obsessed with connecting with Him. Even at the expense of 'ministry' I just want to commune with Him. I have given up trying to find what the heck God wants me to do and have just tried to find God. The result, I finally am learning to contently continually commune with Him; and I have found more ministry than I have ever experienced at any other period of time.

I pray that I won't start to look at this as a 'method for ministry.' The point of my existence is not to 'do ministry' it is to know and follow Jesus wherever He goes, it is to be in communion with God. Out of this flows peace, joy, compassion, love, righteousness.... and ministry. When we walk with Him He points out things that He sees and tells us how He feels about it, it is then that we can respond to God's heart and be genuine kingdom workers.

Should I expect anything different?

I was scanning radio stations on my drive through Goshen a couple days ago. A radio station rush hour talk show was commenting on the whole Govenor Spitzer fiasco. I must say I was sort of, but not really shocked. The summary of their commentary was: "If Spitzer's wife wasn't freaky enough for him in bed then I can understand why he hired a hooker." They continued to go on about how you need to make sure and have a wife who was as equally freaky (or prude) as yourself so that you can be happy in marriage.

Now before you call up James Dobson to get some legislation passed on what people can say about marriage, I ask the question: Should I expect anything different from a world without Jesus Christ? I've noticed the Christian response to conversations like that is usually disgust at how anyone could think in such a distorted way. Admittedly that was my first response. My second response -or should I say the second response which was incited by conviction- was one of disgust.... with me. Of course what they are saying is twisted, of course it's off base, of course that's a pretty screwed up litmus test for a good wife; but how should they know any different?

Paul tells us not to walk in gratifying lustful desires as we did in our 'former ignorance' (I Peter 1:14). That implies that though we are now in Christ, we were at one point (as many still are) in ignorance. These shock jocks are in ignorance (in my opinion, obviously).

To bring it back to Dobson. What is our obsession with making ignorant people act like Christians? What if the Moral Majority passed every little law they wanted to? What if this really became a "Christian Nation" what if marriage were preserved (at least on paper) and homosexuality was illegal? What if porn industries were shut down and bars were closed (not that alchohol in itself is sin to begin with)? Well, we would probably have a nation full of ignorant 'moral' people. People with all the trappings of your typical evangelical, minus a significant relationship with Jesus. I guess if that's the aim we're setting a good example.

Down to a personal level. My disgust with myself came as I listened to the radio because I realized I was investing time feeling disdain for people I should be praying for. Why am I expecting people to be 'moral' when they don't know the one who is the source of morals? Did Jesus even do this? I understand he spoke truth, he told the Samaritan woman to go and sin no more and in forgiving other people's sins he was mentioning the fact that they were sinful; but I can't think of a time where he told somone to change their life without first coming to Him. He said, follow me. He gave a description of what it meant to follow him; he made that pretty clear. He spoke the message, he lived the message, he made clear the benefits and consequences (benefits and consequences of following, consequences of not following); but he left it to the individual to decide whether or not to follow that standard, that lifestyle. Meanwhile his heart burned with compassion as he saw his people marring themselves with sin. There is a drastic difference between my disgust and Jesus Compassion.

Ok maybe I shouldn't hammer Dobson, the guy has a lot of amazing insights to families and child development. All I'm trying to say is that our role in spreading the kingdom is not done by force. We show people there IS a better way to live, and at times we point out that the way the world does things is destructive. Our mission is not to change people, that's God's job. Ours is to show them that there is hope, that there is one who can change them and save them from what they were ignorant of.

Do you know my Jesus?

To say my Jesus makes it sound like my perception of who Jesus is. My perception of who Jesus is is small. Reverse the sentence a little bit. When doubting Thomas said "My Lord and my God," he was saying the reverse of that, "The God of me!"

How foolish we are in limiting the power of Christ. Many say, you limit the grace of Christ in forgiving our shortcomings. Oh how true this is, but equally erroneous is limiting the power of Christ to work in us!

I am both a fatalist and an idealist. I am fatalist in the sense that, we will sin, we will make mistakes. I am an idealist that, the one who has His eyes on Jesus Christ will recieve grace to overcome ANYTHING!! Temptation or trial. We have become soft and complacent, we exalt ourselves, excuse ourselves, and we limit God. We make grace cheap. Oh if only I really knew the heart of God, I would be weeping on my face before Him.

So if sin proves the grace of God, do we keep on sinning? Absolutely not! To walk with Jesus is to converse with the amazing power of righteousness that works in us and through us. The power that equips us to live above what we could possibly live under our own power. And yet we never give God the chance to work through us in that way. Before we give Him the chance to give us the grace endure suffering, we pull a gun. Before we follow the difficult commands of his word and give him the chance to give us the grace to follow them, we pick the easy solution. Oh what calloused people we are! Oh what fools and failures. When will we ever trust our God with unwavering faith. When?!

And then as time wraps up; the Father grasps us in His arms. Seeing all described above, and so much more we don't realize, He whispers to our hearts "you are my child, I love you passionately."

May the Love of Jesus Christ drive us to unmeasureable service to our Lord. And may it drive us into the arms of unmeasureable grace. Somewhere along the path, the two meet, and they create the song of the ages, the gospel of Jesus Christ.



If I stand, let me stand on the promise that you will pull me through. And if I can't, let me fall on the grace that first brought me to you.

-Rich Mullins

To be or not to be?

I have run into a lovely little paradigm that has changed almost nothing, and yet everything. Being raised in a lovely Christian home, I always sought to 'do' what Christ asked of me. I wanted to reach a goal, and so I performed the actions necessary. Right doctrine translated into right practice in order to reach the right goal. I wanted to do the right thing, in order to please God. I never did think I could 'earn' my salvation, but I did want to return love shown to me with the actions I performed.



So what's the problem here? It wasn't me. All those actions I performed came from a mental decision to do so. They came as obedience to commands on paper. Then as a friend recently put it "God burnt my house down and started over." I stopped trying to do.



By God's grace I didn't fall off the face of the earth. There were too many people that loved me that I didn't want to dissapoint. I did, however, seem to slack in my actions, what I cared about, what I did. I saw a goal I couldn't accomplish and gave up on it. I just decided to be me. Somewhere along the line of my existance I found me. I also found God waiting there already holding me. What? Holding the uncouth, foul mouthed, uncaring, generally disgusting me? Yep, he had been all along, even while I was off staging another play trying to please Him.



To put it in math terms. Point x = point y (where x=God and y=me). I can't move point y but as x moves in my life, so do I. So now here I am at point y, I want point y to be somewhere farther up the spectrum, but the most important thing is that the equasion works. The most important thing is that point y is where point x is in my life. No matter how I try to thrown in another number, point x will always be found at point y.



If you actually followed that there may be some theological implications that worry you. Don't dig too deep into it. So how does this look in the real world?



The kingdom. The kingdom is lived out, not done. Everything that I do in the kingdom flows out of who the perfect King Jesus Christ is in me. Jason is screwed up, a broken vessel. A broken vessel filled with treasure. The King transforms us, and we live out that transformation. As we become more like Jesus Christ, others see more of Jesus Christ in us.



This is the beautiful message that we have to offer the world. They've seen enough 'perfect people.' What they really need to see is A miserable broken people who are somehow equipped to live above what they possibly could on their own.



I for one am a miserable broken dying person, made alive and beautiful by Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory.



Do all in love to Jesus Christ.