“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”Romans 15:13 ESV
http://bible.com/59/rom.15.13.esv
“Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lord.”
Psalm 36:5-6 ESV
Filed under seeking understanding
70+ years ago C. S. Lewis said that the word Christian had lost its meaning. He compared it to the word gentleman, in that ‘gentleman’ once meant that one had a coat of arms and owned land. Today a gentleman might hold the door for a lady. He continued by pointing out that the word Christian once meant ‘little Christ.’ I think what Lewis was getting at was that being a Christian meant that one was a disciple, a learner of Jesus who gave up a great deal to follow Him as master.
Today, calling oneself a Christian is a label one chooses as part of one’s identity. In many contexts, it really doesn’t mean much more than one’s political party affiliation.
Click, read and consider this exchange in a Budapest paper where Hungary’s PM Orban has stirred the waters about protecting a so-called Christian Europe.
The article shows a Christianity that is hardly Christian in the biblical sense. Thus, I largely reject using the term at all today.
Shocking?
Well, dear reader, remember Jesus died to forgive our sins and rose from the dead to give us eternal life. He then told his disciples to make disciples.
He told no one to fill buildings with converts, onlookers and seekers listening to someone talking about subjects they don’t care about. All so they can check a box that helps them call themselves Christian. Or helps them be seen as “Christian” because they are in the building.
Don’t check a box in a building full of people you don’t really agree with. Instead, do what Jesus commanded:
Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength
and
love your neighbor
and
love your enemies.
He did.
Want to protect “Christian Europe” Mr. PM? Love those refugees and help them get to Western Europe. Love and help the NGOs and just plain folks who are taking sandwiches and water to these oppressed people.
Don’t feel the love? Consider C. S. Lewis’ advice. If you don’t love your neighbor, just begin by acting as if you do, then, after a while, you may find that you do.
_________
Both Lewis thoughts are from Mere Christianity.
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.””John 16:33 ESV
Filed under seeking understanding
Jesus did one thing a bit different than the other Jewis Rabbis. He chose all his disciples. In the century or so before his birth, and then among those contemporaneous to Him, you -to use modern language- applied to be a disciple of rabbi so and so. But Jesus chose The Twelve. The were many others who made up the rest of the 70-something in the outter circle and the hundreds or thousands of onlookers and seekers. But the Gospels tell us HE CHOSE the 12.
However you try to intrepret “choosing” He is still choosing as Paul states to his own disciple Timothy:
“Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,” (2 Timothy 1:8-9 ESV)
When we study the Gospels and get a handle on what it was like to be His disciple and compare that to modern Christianity, well, the norm of today just doesn’t compare.
Why?
For too many “Christians,” being a “Christian” is just a little more than an add-on to the rest of their lives. I think we have history to thank for this. There is little desire to learn. Many church services are more about manipulating experience or following the status quo or teaching through the Bible (‘cuz that’s our thing) than learning to be a disciple. For 50+ years in the USA and beyond, small group are to be communities that – well, the stated purposes are myriad, but how many disciples are made? There is the biblical question.
Jesus said to preach the gospel to all nations. He preached! But he called 12 and taught these learners and empowered them and appointed them… to make disciples as they went, just as He did. As he went. It didn’t happen much in synagogue, it usually happened along the road or across a table. Church is part of discipleship as an incubator of converts who become disciples who make disciples. As disciples we need the gathering of the saints, but disciples are seldom made from pulpits.
Paul was a self proclaimed prisoner to the gospel, he was a called, taught, empowered and appointed. We all should be too.
““Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” (John 14:12-14 ESV)
Are you a disciple of Jesus?
Are you making others into disciples?
Filed under disciple making, seeking understanding
Each year when my reading plan brings me to it, I love reading about the details the tabernacle in Exodus. This always reminds me of the fact that God cares about us and the details of developing our lives.
In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis put it this way:
Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.
Peter put it this way:
“As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:4-5 ESV)
One of the ways we get built up is suffering – I’ll be preaching about that this Sunday at Christ Community Church in Charlottesville. Another is walking with fellow disciples: regularly, intentionally, vulnerably, asking one another Jesus type questions about life following God.
Are you walking with fellow disciples who can point you to God when times are tough? So that rather than ask “Why me?” We can ask “How will you get glory through this oh God?”
Filed under disciple making, seeking understanding
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