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Tag: Jesus (Page 8 of 53)

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.

I Got It

December 13, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Some days I miss the cartoons from when I was growing up. You know the kind I’m talking about. Not nearly the animation technology we have today, but we didn’t really care. They were often corny but we all got it. I can remember the symbol in those cartoons for when someone had an idea, one of those moments when the light goes on. 

As we prepare for Christmas we often fill our lives with artificial lights. We put them on our tree and string them around our house. We light them as candles in our windows. We even have things that shimmer and reflect the light around it. I’m a sucker for all things Christmas. I love the tree and lights and fire crackling in the fireplace. These are just part of the season to me. But they can’t replace the real light we all need this time of year. 

There’s a story in Joshua 24 that deals with the darkness of the world taking over the hearts of God’s people. They were confused who they should follow. They got distracted by all the shiny things around them. The glamour and light of popularity and fame, money and power were all the rage. But Joshua calls them back again with one of those lightbulb moments. 

Choose this day who you will serve…but for me and my house we will serve the Lord.This is Joshua’s call to the people to come back to following God in verses 14-15. 

As we approach the day that all of these lights point us toward, we can’t lose focus. We have to remember that all these extra lights of the season can’t replace the real light we have in Jesus. The meaning of this whole time of year is found in the light that would come into a darkened world. That light wouldn’t come in fancy things or lots of money. It would come in a towel wrapped baby. In a manger for a bed. It would come in the most unexpected plan you could ever imagine and that’s what made it the perfect plan!

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!

In Their Fields

December 8, 2023 / / 0 Comments

As we continue through the Christmas story we come face to face with the shepherds. You know the crew that were surprised by the angels while they were out minding their own business. Unexpecting is putting it mildly! They were shocked! 

There are actually two stores in the Bible where unexpecting shepherds are confronted with a message from God. The first one is in Exodus 3 where Moses is taking care of some sheep for his father-in-law. While he’s out making sure they have good pasture to feed and clean water to drink, he notices something that doesn’t look right. A bush is on fire but it’s not burning up. As he gets closer the bush talks to him “Moses, Moses”. (Exodus 3:4) That’s it. That’s all it took. Well there’s more to the story as you unpack Exodus 3 but all it took for Moses to realize what was happening was for the bush to call his name. It was God with a special message for an unexpecting shepherd. 

That message was that God was going to save his people. He was going to bring his people out of slavery and into a new life of freedom like they couldn’t even imagine. 

Fast forward to the shepherds tending their flocks in Luke 2, you know the Christmas story shepherds. Yeah they saw something strange as well! This time, however, it wasn’t a talking bush calling their name. It was an angel followed by a bunch of them! Totally got their attention. Their message was kind of similar to the one Moses heard. 

There was a baby born who was going to free the people. Except this freedom isn’t from Egyptian dictators. It was a freedom from the power of sin. An unexpecting Moses and some unexpecting shepherds hear the same message. God is about saving his people, and we are the very people he came to save. 

A Mother’s Heart

December 7, 2023 / / 0 Comments

There was a woman who was advanced in years. Not to sound too disrespectful but she was actually old. I don’t mean how 40 is old when you’re 10 years old. This woman was well advanced in years. Being old isn’t an issue. The problem was that this woman was told she was going to be pregnant. 

You’ve probably already guessed the story. It’s the story of Abraham and Sarah. They were old. Sarah couldn’t have children. It was just not going to happen. God approaches Abraham and tells him they’re going to have a son. This causes a bit of a chuckle kind of moment as you’d imagine. But in the end it happened. An unexpecting mom is expecting. 

Christmas is a time for us to put aside all the expectations of that perfect holiday. We expect our children to behave a certain way and for family to just get along this one year that we’re hosting the family dinner. We move into a season of warmth and joy with so many expectations, but that first Christmas was all about unexpecting people. 

Mary was told by an angel that she was going to have a baby. She didn’t expect this. Sure she was engaged but she wasn’t married. She knew that she could not be pregnant. It just wasn’t possible. Yet the angel told her something different. She was the second unexpecting mom in the story of Christmas. You see Sarah had to have a child because without Isaac there would be no Jesus. And Mary had to have a son because without Jesus there would be no salvation for the world. 

It took two unexpecting moms to give birth to two sons for us to have an unexpected savior. 

Take time to look over the story of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 17-18. Then think of other unexpecting people you remember from the Bible. 

Sticky Word

December 6, 2023 / / 0 Comments

There are some words that I call sticky. They’re the kinds of words that you hear and don’t really know how to categorize. You have them. We all do actually. And you might even have an idea what they mean but really don’t have a clear and concise way to explain them.

One of those sticky words that is super prevalent in the church world right now is the term discipleship. Ok so it’s not new by any stretch and it’s actually been one of those sticky words for quite some time. That probably has to do something with the final command of Jesus being for the people of God to focus on making disciples.

Throughout history we’ve done our best to draw pictures, make up definitions, write books, craft bible studies, and have cleverly worded mission statements that are all focused on discipleship. We want so badly to do this but just don’t know what it even really means…much less have a concise way to communicate it to anyone.

I really don’t think it’s quite as hard as we make it out to be. And even more I don’t think making disciples is something that happens in a book, bible study, worship service, or some kind of bible memorization tool. These are all really good things! And I completely advocate all of them as part of the overall life of a person who follows Jesus, but I don’t think it’s quite the whole picture Jesus intends.

Discipleship isn’t some assembly line process where we run a group of 60 people through a program and they all come out looking the same. That’s just not how it works. Put 60 people into a worship service or bible study group and you don’t get 60 exact replicas come out the other side on fire for Jesus.

I really believe that it all starts with a definition. You have to define the term. I’ve defined discipleship the same way for years. Discipleship is the process of being transformed into the image of Christ for the sake of others. Is this your definition? Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. But you need somewhere to start. So either use this one or come up with your own based on your study of the Jesus’ words.

After you have a definition you’ll have some picture of where you’re headed. And for me this definition gives some clarity to what discipleship does and does not look like. It’s not an event in time which is why we call it a process. It’s replicable to an extent which is also part of that process language. There is a change that is expected as you progress through this process, hence transformed. The output of the process is Jesus. If you’re simply trying to make members of a church or denominational clones, then you’re not really doing discipleship. Finally it’s about relationships, for the sake of others kind of talk. It’s about a journey not a jolt in time.

Unlike the assembly line imagery, discipleship is more of a life-to-life adventure. It’s about inviting someone into your life and letting them walk with you through the mundane. It’s not about adding another block to your already too full calendar either. Discipleship is about adding someone else to your calendar. Discipleship is not about tasks or to dos. It’s about people and relationships.

Look. I really hope discipleship stays one of those sticky words, not because we don’t know what it means either. I hope it stays sticky because we’ve finally arrived at some form of clarity on just how important it is to live around people for the sake of a greater mission.

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