Caveat

12.23.11

John 15.7; 16

7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. NIV

What is it that you need? That’s a big question and as a child of God, or just a person on earth, our needs are seemingly endless. As humans, we have need of food, clothing, and shelter in order to survive. We have need of oxygen in order to breathe. Although some might not want to admit it, we have need of touch, we have need of acceptance; these helps us in the deep places in our heart. We also have need of camaraderie and conversation; these help us socially. Obviously some of these needs are greater for some than for others and sometimes the need depends on the moment or the season. Sometime we have need of laughter and sometimes it’s just to cry.

In another place Jesus said, “For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6.32-33 NIV) Jesus said, and the Father knows we have needs.

Now in the context of the verse above, Jesus doesn’t use the word need, He says, “so that whatever you ask for in My Name the Father will give you.” Jesus used the word ask. But also in the context above, is the point of our asking, and the caveat: If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. (V. 7)

Jesus never promises us a blank check except as it pertains to fruit bearing. Jesus never promises material things except as they apply to fruit bearing. Fruit bearing is what the Heart of Heaven is all about. And that is what we’re to be all about. And so whatever we need in order to do that is promised to be supplied. The caveat is what we do with our lives. To live for God is find every our every need supplied. To remain in Christ is to find our every wish granted. The caveat is the focus of our life and the goal of our being.

I want to find balance in my life in what I do and how it applies to the Kingdom of Heaven. But first, I was never called to balance, and second, even if I was, I am incapable of balance: only Jesus can balance the things in my life. So to look for and live for balance is futile unless I live for Christ and remain in Him in order to bear fruit. Then balance no longer becomes my focus, but fruit bearing does.

So, Lord Jesus, may all I do this day be for Your glory and for Your Kingdom. Thank You for meeting all of my needs and for using me in Your Kingdom for the express purpose of bearing fruit. Amen.

Proved Wrong

12.22.11

John 14.30-31 30 I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me, 31 but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me. NIV

The world really doesn’t care because the world already knows how it’s to play out: it happens all the time. In anticipation of what Jesus was soon to do the world simply said, “Yeah, right!” The world’s attitude was, You are no different than all the rest – no one will do what you claim to be doing! Nobody loves God; they only ever love themselves!

Up to this point, the world seemingly had the upper hand: and there had been centuries of track record to prove it. Starting with Adam’s fall and Cain’s crime – oh yes, the world knew. But Jesus proved the world wrong: the entire world. Nobody ever loved God like Jesus did (does). And since Jesus, few have ever come close. But to this day, many are trying.

I will admit Satan is big, but he isn’t big enough. He can scare, he can threaten, he can deceive, he can trick, but he cannot take away what God has placed in those who believe. And he had no hold on Jesus. That’s massive! Satan make know our weak spots but he never knew Jesus’ because Jesus loved (loves) the Father. And our defense against the wiles of Satan is this: love for God and love for people. The denial of self is love for God and love for people. Satan bets against us because he thinks he’ll find a way to defeat love. But he can’t defeat God and he can’t defeat those who love God. He’ll try, but he can’t.

I know I mentioned Tim Tebow recently. Tim Tebow is a very outspoken Christian and a professional athlete. The world is betting against Tim Tebow because the world can’t stand Tebow’s love for Jesus. Nor can it take ours; the world can’t stand anyone loving Christ and submitting to Him. The more people come to know Jesus and fall truly, madly in love with Him, the more the world stands condemned but such love. The world wants all of us to fail because worldly logic believes that’s best: calling God a liar.

And by the ‘world’ I mean the system of the world with all its arrogance and political correctness; not the planet. The planet longs for the children of God to get it (see Romans 8). But the systems of men are slimy and they could care less because since Adam, men have always loved their systems more than they love God.

So, it appears to me that the key is love and the more we love the more seamless we become. And the fewer the seams the less the hold and the less the hold the more the world is called into account… and the more there are those in whom curiosity arises who ask, “Why are you like you are? What makes you different?” To love is to make the choice to turn one’s back on what the world deems as worthy. That may mean turning one’s back on things that appear very worthy and suffering the consequences of that turning. But to love God is to stand in opposition to what the world dictates and the world doesn’t like that. At all. Loving God and loving people means living in opposition to conventional wisdom knowing the world is, for now, better against you. And Jesus said that’s the point of our faith: that the world may learn that He loved (loves) the Father… thus, the teacher is taught, or more importantly: proved wrong.

The Here and Now

12.21.11

John 11. 32-37 32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

 35 Jesus wept.

 36 Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” NIV

I am pretty much convinced that Jesus wept not because of Lazarus’ death but because of the presence of unbelief. And not just unbelief in the future but unbelief right then and there. First, Mary’ accusation: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” The depth of Mary’s belief was shallow: she’d been a close disciple of the Lord’s; she poured perfume on His feet and wiped them with her hair. Mary had dlose conversations with Jesus about spiritual things. And now her accusation: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died – it’s all your fault!” You can just see the body language of those around listening: it’s true! It’s true!

But then their accusation: “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Unbelief. Lord, You can do anything if You can open the eyes of the blind! “I can’t make you believe, you have to get their on your own…” Unbelief is a powerful power.

I struggle with unbelief all the time. Every day when I go out to work, I struggle with unbelief: will I really find the people I need to find today? Will I really find them and convince them that what I’m offering they need? Since August 22 of this year, I have not ceased to find them; God is faithful so what is my problem; do I really believe!?

What do you need to believe God for today? A friend of mine is believing God for the resolution of her husband’s illness. Some days, she might have her doubts. Jesus is asking her: just believe in Me! I’m the resurrection and the life! And I am those things not just in the future, but right now! Yes, it’s true that the final resurrection is yet to come, but the present resurrection is here now! Believe in Me now because the resurrection from unbelief is here now!

The tears of the Lord are for our inability, outside of Him, to get it… we need to get it! When doubt and fears assail, and tempt us to give up, it’s a tearful moment because the majesty of the Lord’s presence is occluded by fear; and fear is the bully that holds us back from the glorious freedom that is ours in belief! Jesus knew exactly what was going to happen that day at Lazarus’ tomb – and He wept because it did!

Today, the choice is mine. Today, I have the opportunity to believe for the here and now… or to walk in the misty hope of the there and then. Both are true and both are valid. The there and then is just tomorrow’s here and now; and because tomorrow always remains tomorrow and the here and now is all I have today, I will believe Jesus today for the here and now and leave the there and then to Him who holds that for the day when it will become the here and now.

Eat Up

12.19.11

John 6.56 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. NIV

There is a difference between ingestion and digestion. Ingestion is taking it in; digestion is the process of it becoming a part of you. Interestingly, ingestion is something you control; digestion is something you cannot control. To eat or not to eat is a choice. Once it is eaten, digestion just does its normal thing.

Jesus said, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.” So there is the volition of eating: the choice to ingest or not. That is up to the person. The one who makes the choice to eat the flesh of Christ and drink His blood is the one who makes the choice to believe Jesus not only for salvation, but for everyday life. The one who chooses to feed his body does so because he believes in the process of taking in food in order for it to nourish his body. The one who chooses to take Christ in on a daily basis does so because he believes that ‘taking Christ in’ provides nourishment for his spiritual life. Jesus is simply making the comparison that the one who seeks Him and spends time and energy getting to know Him better and seek His ways is like one who knows the benefit of eating food that is made for his enjoyment and health.

In my lifetime diet has been something that has been a large part of my culture and in the lives of those around me. I cannot remember a time in my life when someone wasn’t concerned about the amount of food they ate and the result it caused in their body. One thing we have in the western world is an abundance of food. As I have grown older the issue of food hasn’t diminished; it’s only grown bigger. There are all kinds of diets that have come and gone. We spend billions of dollars on magazines about food, cookbooks, tv programs – all about food. And yet our lives remain largely unsatisfied and our hunger remains.

Jesus doesn’t want us to feast on food that will pass through the body and because of our over-consumption, make us fat. The Lord bids us to feast on Him – to gorge on Him – to make us more like Him. The Lord seeks for us to become fat on our relationship with Him. But we make the daily choice as to whether we nibble and snack: or if we feast. Nowadays, if you ask people about how they feel about their weight, most will probably respond that they are overweight and could stand to lose some pounds (the greater the vanity, the higher the poundage…).

In ancient days a sign of affluence was a chubby body – that meant one could afford to eat more that the average skinny Joe. How chubby are we in our relationship with Jesus? In ancient times the term for chubby was sleek (Cf. Genesis 41:2; Deuteronomy 32:14-16; Jeremiah 5:27-29; Ezekiel 34:16). Are we sleek because we feast and gorge regularly on Jesus – or are we sleek because we feast upon food? Jesus is seeking sleek followers who ingest and digest Him on a daily basis. Eat up!

Come See

12.18.11

John 4.28-30 28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him. NIV

In her excellent book, Jesus for Adults, Linda Rios Brook makes the point that the Samaritan woman in John 4 had to be more that what meets the mind’s eye in the narrative. We are usually given just enough information about the woman to make the conclusion that she was less than acceptable because of the, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” statement. Rios gives a perfectly acceptable explanation about the woman that lends credibility not only to who she is and what she says in her conversation with Jesus, but also the fact that she was able to convince the locals to come and see Jesus for themselves. In telling others about Jesus and our ‘finding’ of Him, credibility is a huge part of both the conversation and the persuasion.

Why did Jesus talk to this woman? Why wasn’t His conversation with someone else? It is fairly well accepted that Jesus went through Samaria in the first place because He was on a divine appointment to meet with this woman at that place on that day. She obviously knew enough of history and culture to be more than just some immoral woman. She obviously had some influence in her community to get the locals to, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.”  And they did. Who listens to societal outcasts (if indeed she was one) making outlandish statements? The point of Rios’ explanation is that we should not be so quick to make a judgment about the Samaritan woman and write her off as some sleaze.

My point in writing today is what do others think about our testimony of meeting the Man who told us everything we ever did? Do they see Him in our lives? Are they even remotely  curious about how we live and what we say? Do we have any credibility with them?

One of the most noticed people out there in the pop-culture sphere today is a guy name Tim Tebow. He has sure made a splash on the scene in the National Football League. He’s been all over national sports media. The mention of his name makes some folks smile and other folks cringe; some really like him and some really hate him. Tebow is not only a talented professional athlete, he’s also professes to be a devout follower of Christ. Tebow is one who could say, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.” And people would. Tebow has credibility… at least for now.

My life, as a follower of Christ, means nothing if I have no credibility. If I profess one thing and live another, folks’ll see right through that: sooner, or later. What kind of influence do I have on the job and in my neighborhood? What kind of influence do I have among my relatives? How about with my kids (some of our greatest fans or most ardent critics…depending…)?

Credibility means everything and the more we surrender to Christ, the more credible we are. We may not be listened to; we may be ridiculed; but our lives will reflect a relationship with Someone that there is no denying. As followers of Jesus, the Christ, our lives are continually being sized up: does what we say match up with what we do? And the invitation to come see a Man who knows about everything I’ve ever done and still accepts me rises or falls on whether we are believable or not.

Who You Found

12.17.11

John 1.41 41 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). NIV

What happens when something good (or cool) happens to you? You run out and find someone to tell – we all like to share good news. Last Tuesday my wife and I went to our local Bi-Mart store and won a gift card because at Bi-Mart, every Tuesday is Lucky Number Tuesday and our number was lucky… (there’s another blog for another time…). So the first thing my bride did was hop on Facebook, and let her sphere of social groupies know what had happened.

Andrew, and another unnamed disciple, was with John the Baptist one day and John said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” Intrigued, the two men – Andrew and this other guy – followed Jesus and asked Him where He was staying. Jesus invited them to see and they went and spent the day with Him. What gets me is the narrative of what Andrew did next, the first thing he did was go find Simon and tell him what he’d found! That is so brother! Andrew I imagine was total blown away, Simon! We have found the Messiah! That’s so cute: it was He who came looking for them…

I love the vividness and honesty of the Biblical narrative – have I mentioned that before? I am blown away with appreciation that Andrew would make a beeline for his brother Simon. I think there’d been talk among them that the Messiah could possibly be around somewhere, after all it was only a few years before that there’d been that star thing and all those kids were slaughtered out in Bethlehem and the vicinity. Obviously, now that John was on the scene and proclaiming his ministry as described by the great prophet Isaiah, there was talk that Messiah could in fact be here! John said so himself!

Andrew saw and Andrew believed! And he wanted his brother to be in on it as well. So he went and told him first! (I’m into exclamation points today…) Simon of course wasn’t quite prepared for the name-change thing, but, y'know, he was blown away too.

Do you remember who you blew away with the news that you’d found the Messiah? I remember telling my folks who seemed less than surprised but courteously courteous. I think they thought I found the Messiah the day I was born. I remember my friends being polite but mystified, “what the (bleep) happened to you!?” (Polite obviously meant something different back then…) I think my siblings thought I’d been captured by a cult. It was a wonderful time but the plain fact is, I told someone first thing. My wife was convinced someone had stolen her husband and replaced him with a weirdo that looked just like him – that is until one night just about a year later she found the Messiah as well – it was a good, good night. I know, I saw it, I was there!

I think the challenge of the discovery of finding the Messiah is keeping it fresh and keeping first things first. There are neighbors to tell. There are co-workers to tell. There are children and grandchildren to tell – first. The first time you see them; the first time you unpack your things at your desk; the first time they ask you, “Gram-pa, who is Jesus?” Then you watch them get blown away when you tell them Who you’ve found… so maybe they can find Him too!

Calling Them Son

12.16.11

1 Peter 5.13 13 She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark. 14 Greet one another with a kiss of love. NIV

There are two in Scripture that are recorded as calling someone, son (in the faith that is): Paul and Peter. Paul calls Timothy and Titus, son; and Peter calls Mark, son. These are more than just terms of endearment; they called them son because in the truest sense that’s what they were: spiritual children.

In ancient times, one of the most important things to men was to have children and in particular, sons. One of the most significant customs was pass along one’s life to his son (or sons as the case may be.) I think we’ve lost a great deal of that here in the west. I think we take children for granted and don’t do enough to share what we’re made of with them. Our children will see soon enough what we’re made of as a spectator (or a recipient), but not as a partner.

We’re always told to be careful in how soon and how much we should let our children become our friends – in other words, not giving them too much too soon. We like to be called dad, or pops, or whatever; but we don’t want to fracture our authority before it’s time. Fracturing will come soon enough. Until that point though, we should want to use our authority to build our children up, not tear them down. Not easy, but do-able.

Paul and Peter poured their lives into their spiritual children. Both men saw the value in doing so and didn’t miss an opportunity to get their spiritual children involved at the deepest levels as soon as possible. Both Paul and Peter knew their lives were going to expire (at some point) and knew at a profound level how important it was to raise up from their spiritual children, spiritual fathers.

Mark was Peter’ spiritual son and was extremely valuable to Peter. It is thought that the Gospel of Mark was actually Peter’s work dictated to Mark (or maybe Mark’s writings of what he learned from Peter’s testimony). Mark himself is visible in glimpses in Paul’s, Peter’s, and Luke’s writings. The beauty of the New Testament is the span of time it covers and the lives of people it details. Mark was thought to be unreliable by Paul at first (Cf. Acts 15.36 ff.) but very important to him later in life (Colossians 4.10). Peter alludes to the same thing in his first epistle.

Spiritual sons, like biological sons, need to be nurtured and helped along the way. There needs to be patience and praise in order to help them. But the bottom line is what they will learn from us. They will watch and see how we handle things and try to emulate some of it because of our influence. They might pick up a bad habit or two from us; that’s the risk. But being with them and including them in as much as we can, will have an impact on their lives to the point that we can say later in life things like: She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings, and so does my son (_______________).

Father, use me to influence the lives of my sons for Your Kingdom regardless of what kind they are – amen.