Teaching Christ what he doesn't know

This is about my friend who refers to his life as a carousel… In order to read this, there are a few verses at the beginning and then my writing is midway… Click on the link below or if that doesn't work copy it into a browser

http://e2.ma/message/3xc4f/bwgg1

Look back, Jack

Something I wrote about fear today… Here's how to navigate this link, there are a few verses at the beginning and then my writing begins… click on the link below or if that doesn't work copy it into your browser

http://e2.ma/message/7cb4f/bwgg1

The Godliness of Being One's Self - Part 4

It was the smallest of interactions.

The young man sitting in front of me was applying for a position in my department a few years ago.  He was clearly over-qualified.

I had to stop the interview and ask him bluntly, "If you weren't afraid of anything ... if fear was not your obstacle ... what would you do with your life?"

He took a deep breath and gave me an answer that was a wonderful vision for his life.  And I knew it was well within his ability to make it happen.

When he finished, I said, "Go... do that!"

I could almost viscerally discern the strength and resolve pouring into him.

He stood up and said, "I will!",  pumping my hand enthusiastically.

I later received an email from him telling how he indeed moved into this line of work and how satisfying it was.

I felt I had made a difference in his life because I had reacted candidly and authentically to him.

I felt Christ had touched him.

Through me.

I had not quoted scripture (although there's nothing wrong with that).  I had not given him a pamphlet or website address that listed church meeting times.

I was just being myself.  But ... wait for it ... the magic was that Christ lives in me.

So whoever I touch, Christ has the opportunity to touch.

Can you see how powerful this is?

As I move through life, navigating through the myriad of interactions I have each day, whether it be work or personal, I represent a potential Christ touchpoint for every single human being I encounter.

Just by being myself.

You see, God is so brilliant that he has embedded the Holy Spirit within us.  His manifestation comes out through our personality, our intelligence, our empathy, our passions, our humor and so on.

Brilliant.

As we are being ourselves.

The weakest leaders, followers, co-workers, neighbors, friends, etc are those who feel they need to pretend to be one way when they are really another way entirely.

In the kingdom of God, I believe that as you relax into your native abilities, approaches and interests, you grow exponentially stronger in Him.

Not taught much but I think it is a key and vital truth of the kingdom of God.

"So, Terry, are you saying that everyone you encounter through the day is touched by Christ by virtue of encountering you?"

Depending on how congruently I am chugging along at any point in a day, I would say yes.

Oh, I have massive chunks of the day when I am frustrated, etc that folks might not see Christ in me.  But even then, there is something about encountering an authentic person filled with Christ, even under the strain of frustration, that is redemptive.

If you are not comfortable in your own skin, somehow all this gets blocked.

Being comfortable with who God has made you at a DNA level is a life-long journey.  However, so is maturity in Christ.  And these two paths are often one.

Today ... I implore you ... be yourself!

You may find your maturity in Christ accelerating.

The Centurion is Past Due

I wonder about the centurion who came to the realization that the one he had just helped crucify was indeed God’s offspring.  The light came on for him just after Jesus’ light went out. 

And take note that he spoke his realization out loud.  In front of his peers.

He may have been one who brutally persecuted Jesus in his last hours.  He may have taken part in the cruel taunting.  We just do not know.

But we do know one thing … he had a realization that many around him did not share.  He saw Christ for who he was.

Just a couple of minutes too late.

Realizations , understandings and comprehensions of things eternal do not always keep tidy schedules. 

I have no doubt that this centurion was forever changed fundamentally by his awakening. 

That obnoxious person who sits next to you at work may be just one day away from a life-altering view of Jesus.  You just do not know.

That relative of yours who always shoves your talk of the kingdom back in your face might be only twenty minutes away from a jaw-dropping conversion experience.  You just do not know.

That neighbor of yours who is the personification of agnosticism and quite articulate about it may be on the verge of recognizing Christ in an overwhelming way.  You just don’t know.

Never give up on the taunters, the skeptics, the raucous persecutors. You do not know God’s plan for them.

Is there a centurion in your life who is way past due in accepting Jesus?

Be patient … God never misses the train.

The Rooster, the Avalanche and the Snake

 Fear again is in the driver’s seat for Peter in Mark 14:56-72.

Not only fear, but anger also shows up at the party.  Lying also joins the activities. Not to be outdone, cursing also arrives however fashionably late.

Fear is like a huge black snake wrapped around your spirit, squeezing the life out of you.

Fear was a central guidepost in my life when I was younger and it forced me into bad decisions and many stupid actions.  It injected stress where stress did not need to be.  It caused me to be stressed 24 - 7.

Sorta like what was happening to Peter.

Fear is like an avalanche … once it gets going, it is a potent force, almost unstoppable.

Sorta like what was happening to Peter.

I would love to have jumped out of the crowd and said to Peter, “Hey, God hasn’t given you a spirit of fear, Peter!”

The rooster crowing turned the avalanche of fears into a torrent of tears.  Giving in to our fears is never our finest hour.

With God on your side and the Comforter in your heart, lean in to your fears today.  By that, I mean move toward your fears and watch the hand of God make you brave and courageous.

Today.

What the Deli Served in 0 A.D.

I understand what Peter did in Mark 14: 53-65.

He kept a distance between Jesus and himself, in order to try to figure things out.

The distance was built by fear, wasn’t it?  Fear was the master engineer of Peter hanging back.  Fear had the blueprints and designed the moment in today’s passage.

Later, the church was built on Peter and the apostles however, presently, he was failing the fear-test in a spectacular way.

If this situation was a deli, fear sandwiches were the only thing on the menu for Peter that day.

Fear is like a cold, freezing pair of hands squeezing our spirits.  

Fear has dread baked right into the middle of it.  Dread can rule our lives.  Dread can make us lose our dreams.  Dread can cause suicides.  

Peter was dreading what he was witnessing. 

When you give in to fear, it is like watering a poisonous vine that chokes any and everything in its path.  When you give in to fear, you fertilize the destructive vine.  It is like you are feeding the monster in the backyard.  Not smart.

Fortunately, as Peter becomes filled with the Holy Spirit in Acts, we see a movement away from what this passages outlines today.  He no longer is dominated by fear.  The poisonous vine dies and the Spirit ushers in strong, transformational courage.

The monster in the backyard evaporates.

What are you afraid of today?

Trust God today to give you the grace to face that one fear down and as you do, you will be ready to face down the next fear, then the next then the next.

And transformation will have arrived.

There's a new sheriff in town

There is a god in our nation called “Lord ReallyBusy”.

If you worship at his altar, you just might be so distracted that nothing else bothers you or is able to pierce the cloak of impenetrable activity that this god wraps around all its followers.

The kingdom of God is so unlike our normal inclinations.  Busy-ness does not equal progress, Being involved in a myriad of activities does not automatically translate into spiritual depth.  As a matter of fact, it just might keep your car stuck in the mud.

Jesus told Martha that she was simply doing too much.  She was involved in worshipping “Lord ReallyBusy” and not Jesus Christ.  (And she did not even notice it!) 

But what is really a jaw-dropper is when Jesus took Martha’s to-do list away from her and threw it in the trash.  Then he gave her a new to-do list.

It had only one thing on it.

According to Luke 10:42, the one thing was:

1)    Sit at my feet and listen to me.

There was no number two.  There was no number three.

Just number one.

What is on your to-do list today?

Dear God of Love, please incinerate my enemies!

OK, read the following verses then jump into my thoughts afterwards!

Luke 9: 51 - 56

51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; 53but they did not receive him, because his face was set towards Jerusalem. 54When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, ‘Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?’* 55 But he turned and rebuked them. 56Then* they went on to another village.


------
The disciples are at it again!

Apparently, that primal and foundational sin, pride, has jumped into their pockets as they move through the countryside with Jesus. Witnessing miracle after miracle and hearing the words of life from Jesus’ very lips seems not to have had quite the desired effect on this group.

When a village does not give Jesus the key to the city, how furious are the disciples! James and John then utter the immortal words, ‘Any problem with us asking that they be incinerated?’

The problem I have with this passage is that I see myself in it.

I get slighted and I need revenge. I feel insulted and I want someone’s head. I sense disrespect and look out jugular, here I come.

Pride is the gasoline in my engine when I feel this way.

I don’t see where Jesus reprimanded the village, he just continued his journey. Perhaps because he was hooked in to his Father’s more transcendent purposes?

Pride often retreats in the face of larger purpose. Higher matters always trump the smaller trivialities.

Pride causes all sorts of odd little behaviors in our lives. It is as persistent as a mosquito in the heat of summer.

Who has disparaged you lately? Who has not treated you appropriately recently?

What kind of fire have you wished on them?

May we see pride as the hobgoblin of those of us who seek Christ.

Daily be aware and repent. Allow the updraft of Christ’s purposes to help you ascend over small pettinesses.

It is the only way you can ever arrive at your Jerusalem.

Jesus Christ Superstar and me - a match made in ...

I always find it funny when I hear folks say that such and such a person is not reachable by Christ.

Or that this other person surely has found a way to be beyond God's long arm.

Or that their child is the one person who has finally managed to find a way to elude the hounds of heaven.

I also find it amusing when I hear other folks prescribe exactly and precisely how a person has to come to know Christ. You know the drill, a person HAS TO be baptised in order to be saved ... a person HAS TO go through 3 or 4 steps (depending on who you are talking to) in order to be properly redeemed ... a person HAS TO pray a prayer with certain words and themes before becoming a Christian.

Balderdash!

None of that is true, in my humble opinion.

The Bible is so full of different methods and ways and approaches that folks have experienced in coming to Christ that I can only find one commonality ... the destination, Jesus Christ.

Take me, for example.

I was a teenage agnostic. And I did not subscribe to the theory that the Bible was true.

Until I heard Jesus Christ, Superstar, the irreverent rock opera.

Now, Jesus Christ, Superstar, was condemned and blasted by just about every church that existed at that time. They alleged that it was not accurate ... it was not respectful ... it was too far out ... it made fun of Christ ... and on and on and on. Churches around the nation reloaded and declared it to be of the devil. Churches around the nation authoritatively declared it to be a heretical blasphemy.

But God used it to bring me to himself.

Sobering, isn't it?

When I listened to it at the age of 18, a door in my heart opened that had never been opened. When I listened to it at the age of 18, a desert inside of me began a self-irrigation project. Christ began somehow to change me.

We never know who or what God will use to bring someone to Christ. We may say we know, but we really don't.

Try not to limit God, ok? Try not to prescribe his ways and methods for others since he will assuredly not adhere to your rules that you set for him.

• If God wants to knock someone off a donkey to facilitate their salvation, that is ok.
• If God wants to use a rooster to call the unrepentant to repentance, so be it.
• If God wants to use the terror of a roller-coaster ride in a theme park to draw a person into his kingdom, that's just peachy.
• If God wants to use a rock in your shoe to bring you to himself, then that's just perfect!
• If God wants to use the death of a loved one to brush your face against eternity, super!
• If he wants to use an old-fashioned altar call in a Southern Baptist church to throw his ropes around you, excellent!

Entire denominations are built around prescribing methods of salvation that must be adhered to in order to know that your ticket has been punched.

He will do what he will do and he will use who or what he chooses. GASP! What a novel concept! Some might even say that this is the definition of sovereignty. DOUBLE GASP!

Here's the take-away, gang ... let God be sovereign and you worry about what kind of follower of Jesus you are ... his sovereignty will choose the right approach to bring others into the kingdom.

Keep your ear attuned to him so that you might know how you can help, if, indeed, you can at all.

Who knows, he might even use a rock opera.

Fear and the vapor lion

I love David Letterman's top ten lists.

If I had to list the top ten things that in the past presented obstacles in my life, fear would probably be number one. No, not probably ... it would be number one.

Let's talk about fear.

It has cold hands and can penetrate to the very core of our souls.

Nickelodeon created the concept of being slimed quite a few years ago. Green, goopy liquid would be dumped on an unsuspecting show member, much to the delight of the audience.

It temporarily immobilized the show member, stunning them, paralyzing them, disorienting them as the slime drenched them.

Fear is much like this.

Fear is like getting slimed.

Which brings me to my next point ... God is anti-slime, anti-fear.

If I understand the Scriptures correctly, God does not want fear to play a part in our lives. Because fear brings all sorts of bad things into our lives, all sorts of counter-productive things into our lives. It imports into our souls the anti-matter of all things good.

It is the devil's slime.

But wait, there's more!

Fear will throw you into a psychological prison where no Christian belongs. Fear will bring out the handcuffs that reach way beyond your wrists all the way into your spirit. Fear will wrap you with steel linen and introduce death where life had previously been, turning you into a mummy, only not of the Egyptian sort.

There is a proverb that states, "There is a man who flees when no lion is pursuing."

Think about this: fear has this man running with all his might away from a chasing lion yet there is no lion. Only a vapor lion that fear has constructed in the man's mind.

Fear is like this. Even when there is nothing to fear, absolutely nothing, it constructs a vapor lion that rears up on its hind legs and roars loudly and ferociously. Fear creates scenarios that paralyze us and off we go running - paralyzed to do anything other than run.

The metaphor of running is very instructive here - when one runs, you really can't do much else simultaneously other than run. You cannot, for example, mow the yard, watch football, attend church, or meet a friend at Starbucks while simultaneously engaged in running - running consumes all your focus and energy.

And there you have it!

Our reaction to fear can crowd everything else out. Our response to fear can render us virtually useless for anything else. Fear can taser us and down we go. The vapor lion can maul us and maul us some more.

But it gets even better!

Fear that is unchecked can force us into a corner and cause us to make poor choices that can have hideous consequences on our lives in the present but especially in the future. Unconfronted fear can cause us to avoid life altogether. Unaddressed fear can cause us to pedal our bicycle with all our might trying to outrun the vapor lion, exhausting us and rendering us ineffective for anything wothwhile.

Finally, fear draws a box around any hope we have, then slowly, ever so slowly, shrinks the box, effectively extinguishing our hope. And when hope is gone, our bridge to anything productive in our lives simply collapses and falls into the river.

Are you someone who runs when no lion is actually chasing?

Have fear and dread hobbled you deep in your spirit?

Has fear become the prison in which you are serving a life sentence?

Here's what I did to banish the vapor lion.

I started by taking deep into my spirit 2 Timothy 1:7 which states that 'God has not given me a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind.'

I meditated on it. I read and re-read and re-read it. I pondered it.

I decided that I needed to believe it. So I began saying it out loud. You will never know how much this simple act helps (until you read a book like Brain Rules that gives a neurosurgeon's view of it).

I determined that fear would not continuously invent vapor lions that kept me running, with all the resultant issues popping up in my life that I have outlined above. My faith in 2 Timothy 1:7 was my vapor lion terminator.

Next, I talked about my struggle with fear with folks that I trusted. That simple act really slammed the cage door on the vapor lion.

Why?

Well, God has so designed our souls and spirits that simply speaking of our struggles with a trusted one is therapeutic to a degree that counseling communities have long acknowledged. Simply speaking of it. Not speaking of it and receiving advice but simply disclosing verbally the inner reality.

Long before Freud developed his psychiatric theories, he was astonished to find that when his patients in his Austrian hospital simply spoke to him of their problems, they got better. He usually only listened. And they got better. Simply by speaking of their issues.

There is a divine magic and power in this simple act.

Do you know someone who struggles with simple everyday fear, panic attacks, dread or phobias? Pray for them in faith and let them read this.

Do you struggle with the same? Do you find yourself fleeing when no lion chases?

Reflect on my thoughts above then take action.

Being slimed with fear will soon cease.

That vapor lion that chases you will be sent back to the circus from which he escaped.

And you can enjoy peace.