Tag: Jesus

“From ‘Worst’ to Faithfully Appointed.”

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“I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service.”  -1 Timothy 1:12

The man once named Saul, persecutor and murderer of Christ-followers has been redeemed.  Now, Christ’s ambassador, a humble servant renamed Paul writes to Timothy his protege and for all intense and purposes adopted son.  Paul is nearing the end of his life.  He knows that time is now running out for him.  He isn’t bitter.  He isn’t scorning and cursing his captors – Rome, instead he is making the most of his remaining time.   He writes this encouraging letter to Timothy as a father would lovingly pen words on a page to a son.  Paul considers himself the worst of sinners and even says son in his letter to Timothy.  

Is there regret from his previous life, before Christ cast his light of salvation on him on a dusty Damascus road?  Yes.  But has this regret stopped Paul from living for Christ alone?  No!  Though Paul considered himself the worst of sinners, he indicates to Timothy that Christ had also deemed him worthy of calling. 

What made Paul worthy?  Was it his own hard work and effort to be ‘good’?  No.  How can a killer of Christians now be considered worthy & faithful?  It becomes a matter of the heart.  What lives inside our hearts only we and God know.  What we feed on within out thought processes only we and God know.  Paul was convinced, and the evidence of his ministry results are apparent, that Christ had judged him faithful and appointed him to serve.  

What about us today? 

Do you feel worthy of being called by God?  Are you willing to serve Him wholeheartedly like Paul did?  We don’t need to have a theological degree to serve Him.  We don’t need to be highly educated to gather a towel around our waist and wash the feet of those around us for His glory.  We don’t need to be preachers like Billy Graham to share this message of hope to the world around us.  We just need to be faithful.  Christ Jesus can and will strengthen you as well, just as He did with Paul.  If we say ‘yes’ to His calling (whatever that calling looks like that enables us to serve Him) he will judge us faithful and then also appoint you as well to whatever task He needs you to serve Him in.  

You may consider yourself in your own minds to be the worst of sinners also.  You may think that God cannot forgive you for what you have done in your life…and you would be wrong!  Christ is willing to forgive you if only you will let Him.  When we open ourselves up to Him and His holy cleansing we will find love, grace and hope…we will find new life!  And in this new life, we too will be judged as faithful servants of the Most High.  

Are you willing today to trust Him?  Are you willing to allow Him into your life?  If you say yes to His calling on your life, watch out!  You will never be the same again!  Because the Apostle Paul said ‘yes’ to Christ many, many lives for changed including Timothy who did carry on in Paul’s footsteps.  Because Paul said ‘yes’ to Christ the very world was changed because of His testimony.  Today, this world needs more Pauls to boldly step up and say ‘yes’ to Christ…may you be a Paul today in your answer today!

-Just a thought.  

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My Prayer (A Poem)

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Father,

Let my hands, marred and filthy

Be cleansed, purified and true

So that I can reach a world that’s dying

And let them find you.

 

Spirit,

Let this tongue, course and violent

Touch the coals from your holy fire

So that I might speak of truth

And love might penetrate this liar.

 

Jesus,

Let my heart, selfish and vain

Beat for the hurting and the lost

So that, with your power and might

Your blood might drown the cost

 

Holiness,

What my heart should love and fear

Christlikeness, breaking sin’s dark mold

This body, soul and mind brought low

So that I, in Christ, a servant…may be bold.  

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Real Discipleship, Real Problems…

“Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Luke 9:23 (NIV)

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Discipleship is NOT easy!

When Jesus came to call His disciples he turned tradition on its head. Rabbis didn’t go to their ‘would-be’ disciples. Rabbis waited for the disciples to come to them. Jesus was a revolutionary! Those who actually became disciples of a Rabbi were deemed ‘good enough’. These were the cream of the crop. Those who had studied and excelled at memorizing scripture and also at discerning those scriptures. A disciple would eventually, if things progress as planned, replace the Rabbi. So the disciple would emulate all that the Rabbi did. They would walk as the Rabbi walked. The would speak as the Rabbi spoke. They would apply the same lens and perspective to the Torah that their Rabbi would apply. Being a disciple was not an easy task. Every waking moment was spent living in the shadow of the Rabbi that they followed.

When Jesus came to call His disciples, He called those few individuals who had moved past their formal education in the temple and back to the vocations of their fathers. They weren’t the cream of the crop. They weren’t the best students, and they weren’t deemed worthy to be disciples by other Rabbis. Yet Jesus came to them. That alone should tell us something about Jesus. He came to get them. To call them. His mode of discipleship was vastly different from other teachers. He essentially picked working class people to become his proteges. He was telling them that though they hadn’t been good enough by the ‘professors and scholars’ of the law that they were good enough for the Son of God.

Think of it. Jesus, God’s own Son, tells a group of rough edged fishermen that they were worthy to become like the Christ. How can this be? One who is perfect, who will eventually take upon Himself the sins of the world and die to save mankind says to a group of imperfect, dirty fishermen; “You can be like me“. It blows the mind. It’s not how it is done in Jesus’ world. Yet He does it His way.

There’s a very real application for us today in this. Jesus still calls the ‘unworthy’, and He says to each of us, “You can be like me!” It doesn’t matter where we’ve come from. Or where we’ve been. It doesn’t matter if we even flunked out of school or lived with addictions. Jesus comes to us and tells us that we can be worthy to be like Him. Can you picture that?

Jesus is essentially telling us that no matter how badly we’ve failed in life. No matter how difficult an upbringing we’ve face; no matter what junk we have in our lives that He believes in us. He believes that we can be like Him. Now perhaps some are thinking ‘there’s no way I could be perfect like Jesus.’ And you know what? You would be right. We can’t be perfect in our own power and strength. We can’t be ‘godlike’ in our own good deeds or our goody-two-shoes attitudes. We won’t ever be good enough to be perfect. Yet God in the form of His Holy Spirit wants and can transform us if we let Him.

To be a disciple of Christ we have to decide that not only He is worthy of following but that we are worthy enough to follow Him. This is the real problem of discipleship. Many just don’t believe in themselves. Many have doubts that they are indeed good enough or worthy enough to be called a disciple of Christ. Here’s the solution to that problem: Jesus believes in you! He believes that you can do it! You are worthy of becoming His disciple because He says so.

I’m sure those fishermen on the shores of Galilee had their doubts in themselves too. I’m sure they too felt unworthy. And yet Jesus called them and said, “Come follow me.” Today He still says that to us. The journey will not be easy. Much will be lost along the way, but so much will be gained in following Him. My prayer for all of us is that we begin to realize that Christ believes in us. And because of that we might begin to have confidence in not only Him but ourselves as well.

“He who began a good work in you, will carry it on into completion!” Philippians 1:6

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-Just a thought.

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Breaking The Stone Altar

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It started out as a random conversation about our favorite books.  Each person told us what was their all time favorite novel and why.  Some were books we all knew and loved, while others were books somewhat foreign to us.  As the conversation wound back around to the originator, someone hit upon a truth.  We all were in agreement that we really loved the C.S. Lewis books, “The Chronicles of Narnia”.   Someone indicated that they really fell in love with the Narnia world.  Another lauded the characters of Peter, Susan, Edmond and Lucy, giving particular moments in the books that really struck them as ‘wonderful’ or ‘brilliant’ through these characters.  Again we all went around the room and shared specifics of the books that we thought we memorable and epic.

Then, someone said it.  I’m not sure who it was, but once the words were loosed it hung in the air like a lingering fog in the early morning hours.  The lights went on in all of us as we all nodded in agreement.  

The Epiphany: Aslan giving up his life resembled that of what Christ had done for us.  Aslan was sacrificed by the White Witch on a stone altar.

For a moment no one spoke.  Each person recalled the scene.

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Then, it hit me.  Aslan died for all of Narnia (which represented our world).  He willingly laid down his life before the evil White Witch.  Then, Aslan died.  As a kid I remember hearing this story, my father reading it to me, and I wept.  Still a lump forms in my throat even now as I remember it.  Though, the story didn’t end in the death of the mightiest lion.  As a matter of fact while Lucy and Susan wept bitterly over Aslan,  something miraculous and completely unthinkable takes place.  As the sun begins to rise from the darkness of night the stone altar that Aslan’s body is still resting on breaks in half and the great lion is resurrected.

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How awesome is that? 

Like Christ, Aslan dies for all the world.  “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) Aslan is killed in the darkness surrounded by every evil thing in the world.  But as soon as the sun crested the horizon that morning, resurrection takes place.

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Jesus, God’s one and only Son arose.  Aslan arose.

When Jesus died an earthquake shook the ground.  The curtain in the temple, which separated the holy of holies, was completely torn from top to bottom.

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Significance: God’s presence was said to dwell in the temple within this sacred space called the ‘Holy of Holies’.  Only High Priests who were clean could enter this place.  It was not accessible to common people.  But when the curtain was torn it signified that God’s presence was accessible to everyone, and that He was not bound by four walls.  He was omnipresent and and omniscient.

The Stone Altar Broke:

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At sun rise, Aslan is resurrected.  He comes back to life and at the same time the stone altar on which he was slain breaks in two.  What could be significant about this?  Could it be that the power and ‘creature made’ order was broken?  Could it be that Aslan couldn’t be bound by evil?  Could it be that Aslan couldn’t be bound by any creature?  Could it be that the old ways were now destroyed while original intent was now restored?

YES TO ALL OF IT!  

Do you see the significance of the breaking altar?

Man’s order of things, man’s fall, man’s rituals are broken.  They are not paramount to the redemption that Christ offers!  Christ came, He died, the curtain was torn, He was dead no longer and God’s original intent for the world was now restored!

The only thing that stands in our way from restoration then is OUR CHOICE.

We can choose to be restored and be made clean through His blood, or we can choose to reject Him.  Either way it boils down to a choice we all have been given and we have to make.  But the really amazing thing is that God has made Himself available to us…everywhere!  Man’s order doesn’t bind God.  Man’s rituals don’t impress Him.

The Stone Altar has been broken for all of us.  Each of us are free to receive His presence…but we have to choose to received Him!  We have been set free, what we do with this freedom and redemption is now up to us…I hope you choose Him!

“None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different. Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don’t understand but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning–either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into that dream again. It was like that now. At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in it’s inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of Summer.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

“If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most, or else just silly.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

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Attention: People Pleasers…it’s pointless.

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When it is all said and done, our feeble meanderings and our efforts of people pleasing will be meaningless…in the grand scheme of things and in God’s glory if we have not lived as servants first and spent our time sharing the grace of God with others we will have little or nothing to show of our earthly efforts and endeavors. -Just a thought.

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“Don’t let my son die!”

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There are no lengths in which a parent will go to in order to save their child!  Few things in this world terrify a parent more than the threat of an illness or death of their child.   As a parent, my worst nightmare in this world is that something would happen to one of my children.  We love them dearly and we want them to live long, healthy lives free of harm and illness.

Such was the case of a royal official.  His story is found in John 4:43-54.   Jesus was back at the place where He had performed His first miracle at a wedding feast.   The wine is long dried up, yet memories of this epic event still linger.  Hearing the news that Jesus, the healer, was back in the area of Galilee, this royal official traveled twenty miles to find Him.  Leaving his sick child behind in this last ditch effort to heal him, the royal official is desperate.   As a parent I can imagine his heart wrenching panic and fear.  His son, whom he loves, is dying.  The distance is great, and yet if Jesus can heal him it will be worth it.

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Finding Jesus, this worried father begs Him to come and heal his sick boy.  With tears streaming down his face and panic in his eyes he makes his plea to Jesus.  “Come!  My son is dying!”  This desperate man is facing his worst fear and not so much with his words, but with his eyes he is pleading with Jesus; “please don’t let my son die!”

Others are gathered there too.   Listening and waiting expectantly for Jesus to do something…something miraculous.  Jesus looks at them and sighs.  They don’t understand who He is.  Their Messiah is standing right there in their midst and yet they still do not believe.  He says to them, “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders you will never believe.”  There is certain sadness in His words.  Jesus understands them all too well, and has struck at the heart of their disbelief.

For a moment, at the words of Jesus, this royal official is afraid He will not come.  There is a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as this last hope seemingly appears to evaporate.  Prompted by this momentary panic, he implores Jesus one last time; “Lord, please come before my son dies.”  Jesus looks at this frightened father and says; “You may go, your son will live.”

The father feels relief as he hears Jesus say those words.  ‘Could it be?  Is my son really healed?’  He hurries off to find out, taking Jesus at His word.  The twenty mile journey will take him over a day to reach home.  Yet while on the homeward trek his servants meet him.  They confirm this long distance miracle: his son is healed and very much a live!  What joy must have filled his heart!  His fears relieved, his son’s health restored!  A parent’s nightmare is lifted and is replaced with a dream come true!

This is what Jesus does.   The healer of the sick, the resurrector of the dead brings us hope and a chance at new life!  To any parent, this is a relief.  But to all Jesus comes and longs for everyone to believe in Him.  He can perform a miracle in your life.  He still heals and binds up the wounds of the sick, and He can still put broken lives back together again.  For this royal official, Jesus provided healing for his dying son.  For all of us, Jesus can and will provide the restoration that we need in our lives.

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Some Say…(Poem)

Some Say

that these moments 

will all fade away 

like the waning of the seasons

never to return again. 

Some say 

there is no turning back

no joy in the journey

no rhyme and no reason.

Some say

all we are is now

nothing waits 

nothing begs us for more.

Some say

our dying breath

each staggered step

leads to nowhere.

Some say…

but fools maybe,

I don’t buy the lie

there’s too much

to fathom that I cannot

comprehend.

Some say

but they don’t

sway me.

I know that I 

have been set free.

That’s what 

saves me, 

This Savior at Calvary

Some Say, 

I Say Believe

He is the way.

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“Step up and Go!”

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Jesus gathered them together.  The ‘twelve’ probably wondered what was next.  They had been with Him for a while.  They had witnessed miracles by His hand.  Been eye witnesses to the multitudes of people who came to hear Him teach.  Now Jesus called them to Him for some kind of closed door ‘huddle’.  “What would He say?” some of them wondered.  These disciples were still young men and in awe of their Rabbi.

They moved in close as Jesus looked into their faces and smiled.  His smile warmed them, made them feel accepted and loved.  Then He blessed them.  Any disciple would be honored to be blessed by their teacher.  Yet He went beyond the customary blessings.  He gave them authority.  With hands raised and face lifted up, Jesus granted them power and authority over all demons and diseases.  Then, He lowered His gaze and looked once more into their eyes.  He spoke to them and gave them instructions to go and preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

Jesus sent them out to do what He had been doing.  They had been witnesses of His words and deeds and now the disciples were to go and emulate the Teacher.  There was a flutter in the stomach.  A tinge of nervousness in the air.  The young men had been instructed to go.  They had been instructed to preach and to heal.  A few wary looks were exchanged.  Someone coughed nervously.

Jesus wasn’t done though.  He gave them additional instructions;  “Take nothing for the journey, neither staff nor bag, nor bread, nor money…don’t even pack an extra tunic.” (Luke 9:3)

Jesus sent His disciples out with nothing yet everything that they would need.   He granted them a kind of authority only the Son of God could grant. They went and did as He had instructed.  Some most likely encountered strong resistance.  Others witnessed the mighty moving of God through their faithfulness.  Every disciple who was sent learned something in their ‘sending out.’

This on-the-field training of the disciples was a turning point for them.  They didn’t have it all  together yet.  But they went.  Jesus empowered them in their sending out.  He gave them what they needed most: authority and experience.

Still to this day Jesus is calling us out.  He is calling us to step up.  He wants to use us for His purposes and to preach the kingdom of God!  The authority is His, but the ability to go is ours.  Will you go where He sends you?  He doesn’t send us out empty handed, but He gives us what we need for the mission!  When you say ‘yes’ step up and go!  Don’t be afraid or fearful of what others might think…He is sending you because He believes in you!

“So they (the disciples) departed and went through the towns, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.” (Luke 9:6)

A prayer chorus comes to mind:

“For thy mission make me holy, 

For thy glory make me thine, 

Sanctify each moment fully,

fill my life with love divine.”

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‘The Way’ or the ‘LOST’ way

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They gathered there in the stained glass chapel, the final meeting of a group of people from all walks of life.  The stain glass depicted various cultural and religious forms, from Jesus to Buddha, to the prophet Muhammad…they gathered there and reflected, realizing they were dead and they would enter eternity together as the lost members of Oceanic flight 815.  

I absolutely love the show ‘LOST’, I enjoyed the plots, the characters and the notion of being stranded on this amazing deserted island in the middle of the Pacific ocean.  It kept me coming back for more until…This series finale of the show ‘LOST’ which left me with a bitter taste and heavy heart.  Still to this day I look back at this finale and shake my head, ask myself “did I understand that right?”…I tell myself they ended the show poorly…an amazing journey only to end in some cosmic universalistic afterlife experience which pleases everyone from every religiosity yet offers no consequence or judgement upon evil and wrongs…I recognize redemption and acknowledge the plight of man, but this finale truly bothered me.  It bothers me still to this very day because there’s a lie involved within the premise of the final show and I don’t buy the lie!

The lie is “All roads lead to heaven”…this lie is so immersed in our culture today that many blindly accept it without looking deeper.  It’s an attempt to be all inclusive and yet muddies the waters of morality, ethics and theology.  I don’t buy the lie because I’ve read the words of Jesus when He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).  Jesus said I am THE WAY, not one of the ways, or just another path to the Father.  

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Do I believe that Jesus is THE WAY?  You bet I do!  I believe that there is only one path to God and Hindu, Islam, Buddhism or any other ‘ism’ aren’t paths leading to God.  Our Creator and loving Father wants us to accept Him and that of His one and only Son Jesus who is the only way to the Father.  

One day we will see Him and all will know the truth of Christ’s words.  Don’t buy the lie and get ‘Lost’.  Just a thought for today. 

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