A thought about following God's will

Katye is reading this great book called Sifted by Wayne Cordeiro, founding pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii.  It's about preparing church planters and church leaders to face the struggles of leading a church, especially in that type of situation.  We heard him speak at the Exponential 2013 conference in Orlando that we attended recently together (first time in YEARS to go to a conference together).  She read me this section the other day (good to have a wife that reads!) and it was really good.

It was about following God's direction in your life when you are presented with options.  The basic gist was that if he is presented with a direction and he doesn't receive a clear "no" in seeking God for the direction, he proceeds ahead, trusting God to shut the door.  The truth, he said, is either it's the right thing, God will shut the door or at worst, you made a mistake and God will make you wiser in the end from it.  He's always going to take care of us.

That's backwards from the way we do things, we don't move ahead without the clear "YES!" sometimes, but that's not always how it is following God...one thing is sure, sometimes the process is meant to be the tool by which He communicates direction, not a pre-arranged contract that you sign before you ever start that spells out everything.  Honestly, He might be just needing you to "move over" a little toward the direction to put you in position for the next thing that He wants you to do.

I plan on reading the book, and from all the things Katye has shared, I recommend it, especially for church leaders.

Let it Burn...or not

Ever look at a campfire after the flame has died down?  You’re sitting there late at night and there’s a little glow emanating off the coals of the fire.  You think the fire’s out… until you chunk a little piece of paper next to one of the embers… then the flame appears again. 

Conflict can be like that also, it can burn like a fire.  If we are smart, we go to the person who hurt us and we work it out…usually, forgiveness comes into play, and it’s extinguished….if we are lucky.  Sometimes, we let it smolder, like an ember, and it waits to flame again later.

When Jesus was asked by one of His disciples about how many times to forgive someone, the disciple suggested 7 times.  Jesus countered with 70 times 7.  We tend to think that someone might have to commit an offense against us 490 times and then we forgive them 490 times…but I think we miss something. 

Forgiveness is more of a process than a one-time event… we don’t just forget what happened.  I think Jesus was saying that you might have to use 490 “forgives” on one occurrence of the wrong.  Anything can remind me of pain…a TV program, a song, a conversation, etc…  To forgive means, every time something reminds me of the hurt, I have to make the choice to forgive the person, every time…maybe 1000 times, just for that one thing.

If forgiveness doesn’t stick, pain can come back at any time, like that glowing ember.  Most times, if the flame isn’t there, i.e. the conflict’s died down, we think everything’s okay because the fire is gone, but not hardly.  Let some little piece of “paper”, a word or a look, get too near the glowing ember and you find out the flame burns strong…just like that. We think the “paper” is the problem, but it’s really not.  If the “paper” just lies there, it never burns on its own.  It needs the ignored ember to light it again.  The hotter the fire/hurt, usually the longer the process of forgiveness… but it’s got to be done because usually the person that takes the most damage is the one nearest the fire, and that’s not the person who messed me over…that’s me or those close to me.

For a bowl of soup...

²⁹ One day when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau arrived home from the wilderness exhausted and hungry. ³⁰ Esau said to Jacob, “I’m starved! Give me some of that red stew!” (This is how Esau got his other name, Edom, which means “red.”)

³¹ “All right,” Jacob replied, “but trade me your rights as the firstborn son.”

³² “Look, I’m dying of starvation!” said Esau. “What good is my birthright to me now?”

³³ But Jacob said, “First you must swear that your birthright is mine.” So Esau swore an oath, thereby selling all his rights as the firstborn to his brother, Jacob.

³⁴ Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and lentil stew. Esau ate the meal, then got up and left. He showed contempt for his rights as the firstborn.
Genesis 25:29-34 (NLT)

You might read this and think...that's flat stupid.  The rights as the firstborn are pretty substantial, especially when your Dad is rich.  Isaac, his Dad, was so blessed of God that the Philistines were jealous of him.   As the firstborn son, Esau received twice the inheritance of the other sons, pretty much...and he gave this up because he was hungry, for a bowl of soup.  I sincerely doubt that the guy was about to die, especially when you think back to the 80s and people on hunger strikes living for a month or 2 without food.  Ghandi, at age 74, made it 21 days.  So yeah, I doubt he was that hungry and yes...that's stupid.

Before you start throwing tomatoes and making "selling your birthright for soup" jokes, you might want to realize that you and I do this every day.  How?

As Christ followers we sell our birthright as an adopted son of God all the time, in a sense, by sacrificing what our God has given us to meet a stupid need that wasn't really a need anyway...

...we throw away our witness because someone made us mad.

...we throw away our marriages because of a moment...

...we throw away our finances because we felt we needed more...

...we sin carelessly just because...

...we turn our backs on GREATNESS for God, because we are so afraid of being hungry for a minute...

Wow...don't give up on God today.  The way we approach Him sometimes, it's almost as we are hoping He'll fail or quit or change His mind or get bored and go bother someone else with His grandiose ideas and plans...and when He does, we throw out comments like "well, I guess God wasn't in that."  Well, He was, but, after a while, He took His plans to those that would follow Him, so you are right, NOW, He's not...

...but hey, you got a bowl of soup in your hand, meeting the tiny need of the moment, and it only cost you an unseen fortune.

¹⁷ 17 This is what the Lord says— your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
“I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is good for you and leads you along the paths you should follow.
¹⁸ 18  Oh, that you had listened to my commands!  Then you would have had peace flowing like a gentle river  and righteousness rolling over you like waves in the sea.
¹⁹ 19  Your descendants would have been like the sands along the seashore—
    too many to count!  There would have been no need for your destruction,  or for cutting off your family name.”
Isaiah 48:17-19 (NLT)

How to know if your should listen to that influence...

Ever wondered if you should actually be listening to a particular influence (writer, TV show, blog, etc...)?  Was faced with this today and God called this to mind from James 3...


But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.
James 3:17

Is it...
...pure or tainted?
...ultimately peace-loving or divisive?
...considerate to others or rude to them?  (not does it tell others they are wrong, that's not being rude, and sometimes it's the most considerate thing to do)
...submissive to authority (God) or demanding for itself?
...merciful or unforgiving?
...impartial or one-sided?
...sincere or manipulative?
What fruit seems to spring from it?  (solution or separation, unity or useless conflict, insults or insight).

If it doesn't pass the test, then you can probably get along without it.  Also, any wisdom that you feel led to give to others should follow that rule, too.

A realization

Today, I had a realization of how blessed I've been in my Christian life.  When I was in college, I was a part of the Baptist Student Union as a freshman, but as it happens so much, my sophomore year I chose to head out and try some new things and I joined a popular fraternity on campus (we were #1...seriously, it was great!). While my plan was to kind of do my own thing, sort of flexing my rebellion a bit (well, it wasn't a conscious plan, I was just doing it), God had other plans and he took that opportunity to introduce me to being discipled.

Two guys, Chris Sanders and Sam Bowdoin, joined the fraternity in my pledge class, but they didn't join because my fraternity was so awesome, but because, get this...there weren't any Christians in it. It wasn't what you think...they didn't hate Christians, they were Christians and were taking the whole "missional" thing WAY too serious, about 20 years before missional was a mainstream Christian term. I guess I was doing a great job of not following Christ, because I guess Sam took my lifestyle, with some periodic conviction, because Christ was still trying to coach me through my stupidity, as a sign that I was "lost but questioning"...yeah, that's what I looked like. When I was ready, Sam invited me to come to his room and learn about Christ through that CO discipling tool the Blue Book. Anyway, God used that to right my ship and ended up with me going to Summer Beach Project, where I was discipled by a guy at my school for the summer named Patrick Sharp, who ended up discipling me when I got back to college. I sort of put discipling people on the backburner until I got to Seminary, where I poured my life into a lot of youth and college guys, mainly in a band or those dabbling in worship leading, then I met my wife, Katye.

Katye had had a lot of people pour into her life, from some great SS teachers (who are still discipling ladies today) and then being introduced by her sister to Jerry and Marilyn Fine, who have been voracious disciplers of men and women one on one for the last 40 years or longer (that's another history lesson from there). Jerry and Marilyn had discipled as regular church members for years, and after a while, their job was just getting in the way of their purpose, so they sold their business in the 80s and started just travelling around the world staying places with people for months at a time, discipling people to disciple others. Katye's sister was also greatly affected, a discipling great-great grandmother a few times over herself (Daphne married the Fines' son, Don, who's an awesome Christian minister as well).

Katye introduced me to the Fines and their discipleship system of "One on One with God" (http://www.1on1withgod.org/) I so loved the whole point, being to get you and God and the Word together...that's it, no devo material, you and God and the Bible...all you need to get wisdom from God.

Katye and I have always discipled people, informally and formally, pouring our lives into people everywhere we've been. My greatest thrill in ministry really isn't someone just accepting Christ and praying the prayer...for me, and I don't think I've ever shared this before, it's actually kind of a let-down in some way for me. Growing up with all the mass invitations of "close your eyes and raise your hand" and "easy-believism" of my youth, I've seen SOOOOOOO many people pray the prayer and then walk away from Christ...speaking at youth camps or as an evangelist, you go to the same camps or churches and the same kids keep walking forward at times. I'm kind of ashamed to admit that, but the thing that I began to understand that saved me from ridiculing myself, is that what really gets me going is seeing someone not only accept Christ, but then begin to live in the Word, to be around them as they share the first things they heard from God alone while they read...when they first prayed for something and saw God come through...when they started changing patterns/goals/rhythms of their lives, because what they were doing just wasn't consistent with God's Word/way. Those are the moments I live for... And today, I just realized why...that's what I was always made to live for, because Jesus never commanded me to make converts to get folks to pray the prayer. I think I finally realized that I don't have to feel guilty about that because what I get pumped about is someone becoming a disciple, a follower, not a member or an associate or an attender, but a disciple...all those things matter, but when I meet with someone and they go "yeah, I read John and here's what I just kept hearing all through that book: _______ "...and you know they aren't bs'ing you, because they are citing place after place, because you can't just fast talk your way out of that....then they say "I started to handle ______ this way, because Jesus said so." That's awesome.

Anyway, this week, at Exponential, I hit that realization, which was freeing and guilt-relieving, but on the other side, Exponential was both humbling and scary. The theme of the conference was "DiscipleShift" and it was all about changing the scorecard of our lives and churches by how we raise up disciples, not how big our offerings are or our attendance is, because disciples are the goal, the others are just things we sometimes pass on the way. As speaker after speaker laid out basically what I've been exposed to most of my Christian life, I had to "thank God" for all the blessing of the people who lived the mission and tried to get me to actually get that me being a disciple wasn't enough for Jesus in my life...I had to be about advancing others past just being a convert on an assocational report, but to actually walking with Jesus and teaching others to do the same. Any other finish line is a fake one that pulls up short, for me. It was humbling to think back past Sam to people like Chip Seagle, a high school football coach who took me and Craig Long to a conference in Montgomery, AL to learn about Christ and other things like that...people like Terry Hawkins, Woody Wood (who tried to teach me the Greek language as a 12 year old -- seriously), Bobby Long, Leslie Thompson and so many more that tried to challenge me in the faith...I'm so blessed, and I haven't done enough to justify the investment that God has exposed me to as a believer, it's really sad on my part and I'm kind of ashamed, even though I've been doing this, I haven't done enough.

At the same time, Exponential was scary....as I listened to those speakers basically say things I've been hearing since college as a way of life, I heard the crowds go "ooh" and "ahh" like they'd never thought of that before. I'm not trying to be backhandedly arrogant, because I'm a product of a system, not a prodigy or anything, but it's scary to think that people are on the edge of going to another state or city to plant churches and they are just now seem to be having their eyes opened to just pouring into the guy next to you...I'm glad the speakers spoke and I'm excited for the theme of the conference, because I was encouraged...it was like God was saying, "Yeah, that's what I want, keep doing that and do it harder...invest there.", but I'm also glad they talked because there were a lot of people who needed to be introduced to this, to change the scorecard, the way we measure success...not by simply attracting people who like to go to Bible studies, dinners and a weekend show, but by how are we actually doing on the last command of Christ before He left..."making disciples" and teaching them how to actually live following Christ.

Prayer walking - The first experience that I can recall

My first experience of prayer walking that I can recall was in New York City.  We were on a mission trip to help a church called "The Journey Church" that the church I was on staff at had helped launch shortly after 9/11 (I was up there a few years after.)  As a "Law and Order" nut, it was cool to have one of the people point out a restaurant where the cast and crew frequented near where we were staying or to catch a glimpse of a location where they shot an episode...yeah, I'm that much of a geek.

I remember thinking that prayer walking was an interesting idea, but not really being sure of what I thought about it, but we'd see.  I'd driven and prayed, I'd knelt and prayed (sometimes for an hour or hours, just with me and God unprompted or over prayer request cards at an official "prayer" night).  I'd even prayed as I plowed my Dad's fields in Alabama...no radio, no iPods then, so there wasn't much else to do, but this was different.  We actually also would do other things...like pick up trash or, believe it or not, take disinfectant wipes and wipe down payphones or railings where people put their hands....yeah, nuts, isn't it?  But whatever it was or if we did nothing else, we were to walking among the people of the world, praying for what went on in this area we were in.

I remember walking along the streets and as I walked, asking God for what I should pray, all kinds of things came to mind.  It was slow at first, but as I listened, the Holy Spirit really helped me out.  As I looked at a business or a person, I just think through the things that might be going on in their day...decisions they had to make, whether they (or the people in the business) knew Christ, their families, their kids, their kids work at school, the relationships with their parents, sickness for them or in their family, conversations that they were going to have that day at work or at home, for any addictions that someone might be struggling with privately (or privately that was starting to become public), etc...


Those are the types of things you can pray for and God can help you with that as you walk.  I prayed for their confidence, their insecurities, their fears, their hurts and hangups.  I prayed for things that they might have experienced in church or with people who were Christians...that if it was positive, that God would use it to bring them closer to Christ and if the experiences were negative that God would bring someone into their life to befriend them and show them what they missed in Christ.  I thought about their financial situation and prayed for them to learn to be generous and more importantly, if they already followed Christ, that God would encouraged and remind them that generosity is to be done as worship to God, not just done to those less fortunate.  Every gift to the poor should be given as a gift to the King.

The experience was more like I was actually participating in some way, rather than just asking God to help "over there" with "that person" from the comfort of my home or a church.  This activity was more like I was asking God to help "this person" and "this business" right in front of me...like I giving the best thing that I possess, influence from my relationship with the most powerful Being in existence, to their lives.  It was a faith exercise to allow the Holy Spirit to direct me to things, things I didn't even fully understand that was going on in their lives, because it was really weird the way I'd pray one thing for some and something completely different for another...that was the Holy Spirit's leading, based on His knowledge, not mine.

The truth is that I don't know what good I did that day for people, and it wasn't my place to know in the story God had written for my life.  I do know that I experienced a new kind of faith, just expecting Him to provide, in a way that wasn't that risky to me, but it built a greater understanding that He is there and what it meant to give Him the focus and wait on Him, because sometimes there was silence on His end.  Sometimes, He wanted me to exercise focus and patience and not just eject from the situation because it was momentarily put on pause...it was increasing positive habits in my Christian walk, on a small scale, that He would stretch with other situations, using this activity as a catalyst to draw from to say "well, I waited there and He came through at the right time, so maybe He can do that on a bigger thing."

In a lot of ways, the greatest impact that I saw directly was my own life, but we also saw difference in God's work on the Upper East Side.  The church experience growth just in the week we were there and actually that year, it surpassed the church I was working at in number (and my church wasn't small by any means)...but I know that God moved there in the lives of people and I believe that my prayers weren't in vain for me personally, for the area of New York or for the people who commuted/traveled/shopped/work in the area that I walked.

This Saturday at 10am, we'll be meeting at Palm Bay Regional Park to Prayer Walk some of the neighborhoods around Heritage High School.  It will only take about an hour to an hour 15.  We'll meet at the first soccer parking lot...look for the FBC Melbourne Bus there.  We'll break into teams and then we'll drop you off at your neighborhood to prayer walk.  We'll also pick everyone back up at an appointed time.  Come on out and learn to just "walk by faith" in a very small way...praying for people in our community, and learning to allow God to guide you in a tangible way, as you walk.  I hope that this will not only benefit the people in the neighborhoods, but also let you practice being guided by God in a tangible way.  Don't miss it.

Reflection...a way of life

2 Corinthians 3:18
¹⁸ So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.

Glory...a church word.  What does it mean?  You can get a good understanding from looking at the two words that are translated "glory" in the OT and NT... Hebrew is kabod which means "heaviness" or "weightiness" and then the Greek word is doxa which means a light that shines from something brilliant.  Basically, the glory of God is the evidence that He is at work in the world.  James MacDonald, a Christian pastor/writer, said in his work Vertical Church, that as "wet is to water, so glory is to God" or as "heat is to fire, so glory is to God." or as "light is to bulb, so glory is to God."

So what does that look like?  The promise in 2 Corinthians is clear...when Christ reveals Himself to us and we accept the reality of Him as Savior and Lord, we can stop "trying" to recreate ourselves.  We reflect what God is doing in the World, in/outside/around ourselves and as we do that, God does the work to perfect and remake us more and more into evidence that He's at work on the earth ("glory"- the evidence that God has been at work).

What does that mean for us?
It means that my job is to reflect what God is doing like a mirror...the language is literally that of a reflective surface reflecting God's doxa or light that comes from something brilliant.  Here's some implications for us that we can learn from the mirror analogy.
A mirror only reflects what it focuses on.  If I focus on my fears, I reflect them.  If I focus on my inadequacies, I reflect them.  If I focus on problems, I reflect them and to be a God glorifying person, I can't do that.  I must focus on the work all around me that God is doing...there is no shortage of evidence.  Ever seen that person who is always hopeful, no matter how bad things are.  They aren't ignoring the bad, they are trusting in God's work behind the scenes because they've already seen it too many times to know that it's there.
If the mirror is dirty, then it doesn't reflect so well.  For Christians, dirt happens when we stop following God's plan and choose to follow our own desires instead or when we sin.  Isaiah 59:2 tells us that sin hinders the connection with God.  That's a double duty metaphor because then we are dirty, but we also are not pointed toward Christ and therefore aren't able to reflect God's glory, we are reflecting something else.  That's why God gives us access to "cleaner" so to speak 24/7, because He knows we'll get dirty...inevitable...so 1 John 1:9 tells us that if we confess our sins to Him, He's faithful and just to forgive our sins and CLEANSE us from all unrighteousness.
Here's our normal plan for when we aren't up to snuff, we think we need to hide and bargain with God...like He doesn't know or He didn't plan for that...like we are putting Him out.  We try to "make up" for stuff by going to church more or being "better" or sacrificing something to punish ourselves...whatever.  We are all about trying to make the mirror "look" better, thinking that this squares things with God.  Really all that does is clutter up the mirror with things that make it harder to reflect God's work, because if you are going to reflect God's work, you can't look perfect, because God's work and the evidence of that requires being honest about your imperfections...not ignoring them or you doing some Herculean task to correct them yourself.  As you reflect God, He reshapes you and you become the "evidence that God has been at work" in your own life.  Because here's the thing...
The mirror can't add anything to what it reflects, because it's not about the mirror, it's about the reflection.
Picasso doesn't want me to honor him by giving my best at a painting and then run around and tell everyone that Picasso did that...he'd roll over in his grave screaming "no, no,no".  I can't add to God's glory by dressing myself up OR by just doing what I do and if it turns out well, just passing credit to God.
We see athletes all the time that hit a home run and point to the sky or someone receive an award and say "to God be the glory"...like giving God glory means I do something cool and generously hand God the credit for that and isn't He lucky to have me.  That's ridiculous...Isaiah tells us that anything good that we could do...ANYTHING...is as filthy rags next to God's work...so the evidence of our work isn't in the same league as the evidence of God's work.  We can't add to what God does...we can only point to it or reflect it...and that's all we have to do.
If we think it's about the mirror and we begin to compare mirrors among us and those with more attractive, cooler or more talented mirrors may think or be thought of as better, when that's a fail, because there is one standard...Jesus...and one job...reflection.
The athletes that really get it aren't the ones that in one instance they thank God, but the ones that reflect Christ at all times, not just on the big stage, because that verb literally means that at each moment this action is happening and true and there is no end in sight.
What we see is the truth of 1 Peter 5:6 that if you "humble yourself under the Mighty Hand of God" -- you submit to His ways, His direction, reflecting His character and direction in what you do -- that "He will raise you up in due time".  Just like if I covered a small object with my hand completely, if you tried to see it, you would only see my hand....when we humble ourselves under the Mighty Hand of God, when people look at us, they only see God's hand at work in us, around us or through us...and God keeps reshaping us.  Then, as that happens, I'm not trying to pretty up my mirror, God does that in a way that is permanent and lasting, not my quick fix or duct tape engineering...in fact, the mirror doesn't get fixed, it gets remade and the improvements are things I stuck in my schedule or a new habit learned, but I'm literally different in a way that I couldn't have made myself if I tried.

And that's the beauty of understanding this part of following Jesus...it's not on me, it's on Him and He does the work.  It's hard at times, but it's not my performance that God wants, but my reflective surface...and He does the rest.