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Hide The Spies

December 17, 2023 / / 1 Comment

Another example of an unexpected person used by God to save His people is found in Joshua 2. This is the story of a woman who lived a life that did not line up with God’s desire for healthy relationships. She found herself looking for approval and love from any man who came by. She made her living bouncing from man to man. Yet God chose to use her. 

Could you imagine for a minute being Joshua and his men? They go into a town and things get a little dicey. They need help getting away from the people trying to hurt them. Who do they find willing to help them? Rahab! You know the woman who didn’t look like a follower of God by her actions. She’s the one God chose to call for this particular mission – Save my people.

She would even go on to give a pretty good testimony of her faith that God had already delivered things over to the Israelites. She let her faith lead her actions even though her lifestyle to this point didn’t show it. 

When God chose to send His Son to be born in the little town of Bethlehem, he didn’t do what everyone expected. He didn’t send a powerhouse king or a warrior. He sent a child. Not even a rich child. Just a regular lower to middle class child! 

This child would grow up and do more than just hide God’s people from danger like Rahab did. Jesus would grow to win the ultimate victory over our greatest enemy – death. The point of Advent is to put our hearts in the right place to be able to see what God is up to this time of year. He’s giving us time to slow down and prepare for the coming of the unexpected King of kings who looked more like a peasant than royalty. That’s just how God works. Now it’s time to look for the unexpected as we prepare our hearts for Christmas.

Stutterer

December 16, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Have you ever thought there’s no way I could do that? When we’re met with an obstacle we just are not qualified to tackle, that’s one very common answer. We say it when we’re overwhelmed. We say it when we’re scared. We say it when we lack confidence or focus. We say it when it appears that our resources are just not lined up in the right places. And we’re not alone in thinking this way. 

In Exodus 4, God tells Moses that he will be the one to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. The plan would involve Moses going to Pharaoh and telling him that God said Let My people go. Moses simple answer was I don’t think I’ll remember that and I stutter a bit so you should probably pick someone else. 

And it’s not just Moses that has these feelings of inadequacy either. All throughout the Bible, God picks the unexpected people to do his work. This will be our focus the next few days as we continue our journey toward an Unexpected Christmas. 

Moses would end up leading the people out of Egypt but not without consequence. He had his failures but God was able to still work through him. That’s the story of Advent and Christmas. It’s the story of God sending an unexpected person to be the one we need to save us. 

As we journey through this time of year, who are the unexpected people God has placed in your path. Maybe it was a co-worker or a friend at school. Perhaps it was the person who cut you off on the highway making you slow down and avoid an accident just seconds ahead of you. God uses some very unlikely people to accomplish the mission for which he came – the most unexpected of all was Jesus. No one thought he could be the one they were looking for – even his closest friends. 

This season of Advent we celebrate the unexpected person of Jesus not only as a baby in a manger but as God made man. 

Unexpected News

December 15, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Have you ever received one of those calls in the middle of the night? You’re sound asleep and the phone rings and startles you to a half awake state? You know in your heart that nothing good happens at 2 o’clock in the morning! And yet there you are, half awake and listening to the voice on the other end of the line.

Sometimes that news is nothing. A wrong number. Someone living on a different continent forgot what time it was in your neck of the woods (yep that one actually happened not too long ago.)

But then there are those times when the phone rings and it’s not what you want to hear. How do you react when crisis hits home? What do you do when you get unexpected news?

I’ll be honest I’m the fix it guy. I like to come up with answers or create plans for how to move forward. I have a tendency to try to cut off problems before they become huge obstacles. But that doesn’t always work.

Some things in life are outside of our control. There are some things we just can’t do on our own. I don’t like those things. I don’t like to sit back and feel like I’m doing nothing.

I’m going to be honest with you here and even a tad vulnerable. If someone looked at my life, they’d likely think I’ve got it pretty easy. And for the most part they are right. I have a great family. Loving wife. Children who are phenomenal examples of people of God. A wonderful home. A terrific place of employment. A church family that would rival any other church throughout history. Like many people around I have a lot going for me.

But the me that everyone sees is the me that I want them to see. I know that sounds a little evil sounding but we all do it. We put a smile on our face when we have bad news. We will often bury the hurts and pains of the losses we’ve faced so we can get the job done. This is the way I get through life’s challenges. For right or for wrong, this is my standard operating procedure.

When people I thought were friends turned to selfish motives and abandoned their position in life, I bit my tongue, smiled and walked on. When I lost three grandparents in 18 months, very few people know what I was feeling. When I was in the midst of challenges and minor conflicts with people close to me, I didn’t spend a lot of time dwelling on it.

But the way I do things doesn’t work for everyone. As a matter of fact, that way doesn’t work for most people. None of these moments that I described above are a crisis in and of themselves. Each of them add a little pressure. Each of them brings a little more weight. Each of them mount on the previous and have the potential to really get heavy. How do you deal with the pressures and crises in life?

Now before someone goes all “see a counselor” on me, let me tell you that I have people around me to talk to. I don’t bottle things up forever. I need to internally process these kinds of things. I hit the gym. I might even go for a run (and I don’t like to run just fyi). I take my dog out for a walk. Mow my lawn. Work in my garden. Walk around my property. These are ways I deal with the crap life throws at me. Eventually, I’ll loop someone in. Eventually, when the emotional storm settles a little, I’ll open up and share what’s on my heart.

The point of this post is that it’s ok to not be ok. It’s ok to clench your fist and want to yell at God. It’s ok to curl up in a ball and ask why me. It’s ok to be broken for a moment. But it’s not ok to feel broken, carry the burdens of life around you and do it all alone. Eventually, you need to lean on someone. Eventually you need to talk to someone. If you don’t…you’ll hurt people close to you. You’ll isolate yourself from people who care about you. You might even end up losing friends when you try to carry the weight of the world by yourself, because you’ll end up taking it out on the people who are trying to care for you.

How do you react when crisis strikes? Break but don’t stay broken. Cry but don’t sit in tears alone. Worry but don’t let that worry overwhelm you. Surround yourself with people who can help you.

It’s Not Supposed To Be That Way

December 15, 2023 / / 0 Comments

No one likes to be blindsided. Something coming out of nowhere and knocking you off course is not fun. Maybe it’s an unexpected car repair or a leak in your roof. Maybe it’s a bill you just didn’t see coming or hospital stay you weren’t planning on having to pay. Sometimes these unexpected blindside moments come in confrontations with people that become angry and divisive. They can even be disobedient moments from our children. 

It’s easy in those moments to think It’s not supposed to be this way. That’s probably what was going through the heads of the disciples in Mark 9:31 when Jesus says, The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him.

Wait just a minute! We were just getting in a groove here Jesus. Everything is just starting to work out. We’re starting to click and really understand what you’re about. This is not how it’s supposed to work! Now that all is a guess as to what was going through their minds but if you read the surrounding passages, it’s probably pretty accurate. 

One of the most unexpected parts of the plan for Christmas was that it would all end in this gruesome and horrific death. That’s not the image we’re generally given around Christmas time, but without Good Friday and Easter this season really doesn’t mean a whole lot. 

When Mary and Joseph welcomed their little baby in that tiny town of Bethlehem, they had no idea what he would end up doing. So often we take the Christmas Jesus and hold onto him as if that’s all there is. But the beauty of this story is that it doesn’t go how we expect because God uses unexpected plans to accomplish his perfect outcome. The season of Advent is all about this unexpected plan of God that ends with us getting a new and perfect life. 

Are They Even Qualified?

December 13, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Over the past couple of weeks, splattered between some devotions for Advent, we’ve covered a couple of posts on the idea of discipleship. It’s one of those sticky words and is about a process that’s often left undefined at best. If you haven’t looked at those posts, I’d encourage you to take a quick peak before perusing what follows. Here are a couple links to help you out.

The two posts I referred to above are titled Sticky Words and What Discipleship Is NOT.

Assuming you’ve read those, we’ll continue with the qualifications needed to be a disciple. Here’s the list…

Yep that’s the list. Did you get it all? No you did not miss a paragraph. There is no list of qualifications needed!

If you dig through the Bible you’ll probably see some pretty odd characters being invited to the process of following Jesus. They didn’t come from the same background. They didn’t all have jobs in the church. None of them were people who were super well respected. Most were uneducated. And not a single one of them was the head in their class in seminary.

Discipleship and leadership in the world Jesus lived in had nothing to do with your qualifications. Actually it only had to do with Jesus’ qualifications and your surrender. The disciples that Jesus called to come and follow him were not the prime candidates to change the world! We’d call them the misfits. The B team. The not quite good enoughs. The bottom of the barrel. You get the point.

So if that’s how Jesus gathered his disciples, then why don’t we do it the same way? Or at least in a similar fashion? I think we tend to make things way more complicated than they really have to be.

We make the hurdles higher for people to come into our churches as members than we do for admission into Ivy League colleges. We make leaders and pastors in churches go through enough classes they could be doctors but they aren’t. Now I’m not saying that we go out and just throw everyone into the hopper but perhaps there is a better way? or maybe another way even if it’s not better.

A group I’m part of uses the phrase belong before you believe in a few different scenarios. And I think we could apply this here as well. Look at what Jesus did with his disciples. None of them believed in him when they started to follow! They didn’t even know who he really was, aside from the son of a woman named Mary and guy named Joseph. That’s pretty much it. He was a carpenter’s kid who looked, talked and acted pretty normal from what I understand.

So when he invited them to follow him and be part of his life, he didn’t make them take a test first to see if they got it or not. He invited them to walk with him and shared some pretty amazing life experiences.

Could it really be that easy? Could we really invite people into the journey of a lifetime? Treat them like they are real humans who really belong to something far bigger than themselves without putting up a bunch of hurdles? Then walk with them as the Holy Spirit does his work?

I mean I hate to be the one to break it to you but we don’t really play an active role in the whole believing and transforming gig anyway. That’s the Spirit’s job. So how about we do what we can do and let God sit in the God seat. He’ll take care of the qualification part. We just need to do the loving and relationship piece of the puzzle. It’s really just that easy.

So if we’re going to be really practical here, take a look at your life. Who do you know? Who are the people in your circle? Your barber or hairstylist? The dude at the gym? The girl on the volleyball team? The kid next to you in class? Your neighbor? Yeah even that one, the one who really gets on your nerves. When you make a list of who is in your life, you can see just how many chances there are to enter into these relationships with great intentionality.

After you make that list of your own personal who’s who, hang out with them. Walk with them. Talk with them. Have a beer with them. Sit down for coffee. Don’t preach to them. Just ask how their day is going. Show them how much you care. Show them that they actually belong somewhere. When that relationship is grounded in real care, the next steps will be way easier…and we’ll talk about that in the next post.

O Little Town of Bethlehem…

December 12, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Kings are born in palaces right? Important people have homes and are cared for in hospitals. They have all the right things at all the right times. They don’t have to sleep on the streets. They generally aren’t considered part of the lower class economically. But this is really the story of Christmas. 

Near the end of the Old Testament is a promise that shows where Jesus would be born. It’s from Micah 5:2 – But you, O Bethlehem Ephratha, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.

Whoa talk an about unexpected plan! Micah says that the promise you’re waiting for is going to come from a tiny little town in a nearly no name place on the map? What in the world is that about anyway! 

There’s a lot in this unexpected plan that really makes the Christmas story so powerful. Bethlehem was the birthplace of King David, so it was fitting that Jesus would come from there. But the problem was Bethlehem wasn’t the place where the ruling party lived. This caused some heartache for the first century Jewish crowd. It’s why they didn’t recognize him. He was born in the right place historically, but in that moment it sure didn’t look right. 

If we dig a little more into the name of the town, we can find even more wonder during this Christmas season. Bethlehem comes from two different words. “Beth” meaning house, and “lehem” meaning bread. So the name of the town was house of bread. Did you get that? House of bread. 

Jesus would say later in his ministry that he is the Bread of Life. And then he gives bread and wine from the Passover meal with his disciples as he gives communion the first time. And that bread he calls his body. From this little house of bread town that didn’t mean much the rest of the world, God would bring the bread of life into the world. His entire life would redefine who we are and how we live. 

O little town of Bethlehem you truly are an unexpected place in God’s unexpected plan. 

Men Plan, God Laughs

December 11, 2023 / / 0 Comments

A good friend of mine taught me this line, and I use it probably far too often. Now don’t get all bent out of shape with the idea of God laughing at our plans. I’m sure he’s not sinisterly laughing at our miserable and often pathetic strategies for accomplishing greatness. Although he really should but that’s not the point. 

There’s a passage from Isaiah 55 that says for my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are my ways your ways, declares the LORD. You don’t say? I never realized that my greatest attempts at thinking like God generally leave me missing something pretty significant. If you didn’t catch the sarcasm there, here’s your sign – I was joking. 

The story of Christmas was a pretty unexpected plan for those first century Jewish followers of God. They were ready and waiting for the greatest king to ever walk on the earth. They wanted this new king to bring them power and stability. They wanted a king who would wipe out the enemy and set up a perfect kingdom where they were always on top. It seemed they wanted someone more like the incredible hulk than the son of a carpenter. 

Could you imagine what that must have been like? Expecting a massively powerful king to come and save you and all of your family and friends only to find out he was a handyman from a no name town? Add to it this would be king was going to die as an accused criminal. How in the world is this the king we are looking for? 

Satan didn’t need to work hard to pull some This is not the king you’re looking for Jedi mind games on them. Who would have thought to do things in this way? An unassuming son of a carpenter would be the one – who would have come up with that? 

Working the unexpected is what God does. And that’s what Christmas is all about. God’s unexpected plan to save the world. 

How Did You Get Here?

December 10, 2023 / / 0 Comments

The Christmas season brings with it several parties and celebrations. We have family and friends, coworkers, special teams of people with whom we work, bosses, teammates and the list goes one. Each one of those has a special list of invitees. We wouldn’t invite our boss to a family gathering. Or a friend from college to a party with our coworkers. 

When someone shows up that’s not invited it generally brings with it a hiccup in the plans. But what happens when the wrong person is invited to the party? You can’t undo the invite. That just isn’t right. Or perhaps the better question to ask is who says they’re the wrong person? 

In the book of Acts we meet a man named Saul. He’s a bit of a nasty one. He’s even worse than the Grinch if we’re being honest. He didn’t steal kids stockings. He would beat people for a living. But in Acts 9 we find Jesus meeting Saul on the road and inviting him to a party. Ok so it’s not a party with gifts or special platters of food. It’s not really a party but more of a movement. 

Jesus invited Saul to change his name and join his team. When Paul switched to the Jesus Team, he wasn’t really liked at first. He was kind of like the not so nice boss walking into your family Christmas. Who wants him there!? Simply put, Jesus wanted him there. 

Jesus has a tendency to include some pretty sketchy people into his life. Shortly after he was born, the Bible includes a group of traveling fortune tellers that we call Magi as some of his famous visitors. But why would they be there? It was about who they weren’t and what they brought. You see they weren’t Jewish people which reminds us that he came for an unexpecting people that no one would have considered. And they brought some gifts with pretty cool meanings. Gold was the gift for kings. Frankincense was the perfume used in temple that reminded of God’s presence kind of like the prophets would remind us of God’s presence in various situations. And myrrh was the oil used to anoint the priests. By welcoming this unexpecting group of travelers he was reminding us that he would be the perfect prophet, priest and king. 

And all this by using unexpecting people. Imagine what he can do with us! 

All Hail The Queen!

December 9, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Imagine a girl with no right to the throne marrying into a royal family and being coronated as the queen of a massive empire. Add to it a little twist for good measure! This is kind of how God works you know. This story is the one of Esther in the Old Testament. You can skim the book of Esther to get the whole story, but here’s the twist. Esther is a Jewish woman who ends up marrying a king of an empire that would very quickly turn against the Jews. Yikes! 

But wait there’s another twist in the plot. Who says the Bible isn’t fun? Esther ends up finding out about the plot to harm all of her family and friends, and she shows up at just the right time to essentially save the day. This is actually our verse for today’s devotion. It comes from Esther 4:14 and it reads for such a time as this. You’re going to have to read the rest of this section to see the whole story. Trust me it’s worth it! Essentially this verse is a reminder that God put Esther in the role she was in for that particular day and purpose. 

Now turn a couple hundred pages in your bibles to the gospel accounts. There you find another moment in time. This time it isn’t a young Jewish girl becoming queen. It’s actually a middle aged carpenter. He was ready to marry this girl from town. They had the details worked out. And then the news came. She was pregnant and it wasn’t his baby. How could this be! Why is this happening to me – he must have thought. 

Why? For such a time as this. Joseph wasn’t going to save the world or even a massive people group. But he was going to save Mary and the child she was carrying. He decided, after a little angelic convincing, to let the engagement continue. They ended up getting married and Jesus was born. 

Just like in the story of Esther, if this unexpecting Joseph wasn’t willing to follow God’s call the story would have ended much differently. 

What Discipleship Is NOT

December 8, 2023 / / 1 Comment

We’ll start this post by saying it’s ok if you disagree with me, and I know some of you will. So don’t get your undies in a bunch over it. If you don’t like what I’m about to say, then scroll on and walk away or reach out and we can chat.

Some people in my tradition think that the crux of discipleship is going to worship. Some feel that being in a worship service where the hymnal is used is the best way to make sure discipleship is happening correctly. I’ll be honest. I think this is a ridiculous concept! If someone believes that the best and most effective way to do discipleship is by going to a worship service, then by default you’re saying Jesus didn’t use the best way!

Jesus didn’t invite anyone to “go to worship,” at least I don’t remember seeing that invitation in any of the gospel accounts. Now before you take those words and form some arsenal against me, don’t mix up my words. I did not say worship isn’t good, essential, necessary, etc. I said it’s not the way Jesus did discipleship.

I think a person who is growing in their relationship with Jesus will go to worship and be a part of a larger group of people following Jesus. But I don’t believe going to worship means you’re a disciple of Jesus. I think it means you’re going to worship and that’s it.

Also, discipleship isn’t memorizing your confessional documents either. Sure they’re important to know and really beneficial to help you understand how you do certain things in ministry and church life, but they are not markers of discipleship.

If you remember from an earlier post, the definition I use for discipleship is the process of being transformed into the image of Christ for the sake of others. This definition has at its core transformation of the person through relationships.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say that the function of worship is transformation of the person worshiping. As a matter of fact the Bible says that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. I don’t see the primary function of worship being to renew our minds. Worship is about receiving the gift of forgiveness in the fellowship of other believers and returning praise to God.

Worship is an expression of a life being transformed but it’s not the primary avenue this transformation happens. So how then does discipleship happen?

Well, I’m glad you asked! I don’t like to give a bunch of negatives without giving a little bit of best practice as I’ve seen it. In my mind, discipleship best happens in a setting with a smaller number of people who agree to journey through life together. It’s highly relational. It’s profoundly personal. It’s intentionally individual while at the same time being curiously corporate. Ok that’s enough alliteration.

If we want to see the best way for discipleship to happen, we need look no further than the life of Jesus. He was kind of the master at the whole discipleship gig. He didn’t sit them down in classrooms. Didn’t ask them to read a book. Actually I don’t even think he required bible memorization. From what I read, he invited them to walk with him so he could show them what it looked like.

He did two basic things which we’ll dive into over the next week. He taught them, or maybe better yet, he reminded them what God had said. Then he led them to a place where they could see it in action. And if we want to get really serious about it, we have to admit he made some pretty high expectations known for those who sought to follow him. It’s pretty much that simple.

Knowledge that led to actions which became a set of expectations for a transformed life.

The long and short of this post is that you don’t need some massive ministry plan to make disciples. You don’t technically need to have someone come to a worship service to be part of this journey either. It’s about walking relationally with someone in an adventurous lifestyle keeping Christ at the center. We don’t transform anyone. That’s God’s job. So start with the journey. Start with the relationship and let God handle the God part. It’s a way bigger job than many people think, but it’s way easier than we make it out to be!

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