Revolution of our Agendas

As a follower of Jesus it’s very difficult how to transfer relationship with God into real life sometimes.  When I was a young man entering adulthood I was zealous, and intensely pursuing God.  I wanted to change the world and I knew that I would.  With God on my side who could be against me?  I spent time within a discipleship program designed to reveal character issues, and bring about lasting foundations in what it is to be a disciple of Jesus.  It was all very, very amazing.  I then spent a semester in seminary with the intended purpose of pastoring a church.  God had different plans, still not fully revealed.

As I walked around campus during seminary school I had a lot of conversations with people just like me.  In my spare time I was reading books about being a shepherd and other books strictly against “organized religion.”  The one thing that slapped me across the face and changed my path forever was that people who pursued seminary (at least the ones I met) never pursued any other career path.  They had “jobs” but their passion was always about Jesus, and ministry.  They had no real, deep connection with the lost or the sick.  This deeply burdened me (not saying seminary school is wrong, it just was for me).  I dropped out in the middle of the semester and began a new career path. 

Financial advising was the next endeavor before finally and fully pursuing nursing school.  I wanted to know people.  I wanted to be in the trenches fighting with them.  I wanted to passionately pursue them with love, healing, hope and life.  I wanted to offer them Jesus in their brokenness.  This was my ministry.  But life has gotten me distracted.  Which brings me to my whole point.

Our agendas, if pursued long enough, become the only thing we can see.  We cannot let this happen.  As lovers of Jesus, he must always be in focus.  It’s not sin that draws us from God, it’s our agendas that do.  If there is a devil, his biggest trick is to convince you your battles, agendas, and pursuits are the most important things in your life so you completely forget whom your heart belongs to. 

I’m ready to remember.  Life is complicated, and tricky.  Our only hope is remembering Jesus.

Revolution of Hope

Life is meaningless.  You work so hard, strive so long for dreams that may or may not be fulfilled.  When they are fulfilled they never quite add up, and you yearn for more.  All the money you earn is for security/insurance.  You put some towards homeowners insurance, automobile insurance, social security, and if you’re financially able some goes towards insuring your lifestyle after retirement.  You exert so much energy and effort into loving your family, friends, etc. and never find yourself satisfied as you continuously don’t measure up.  If you love Jesus, you’re taught, you’ll experience ridiculous joy…after you die.  Heaven is the ultimate end and Jesus is your ultimate means.  Nothing else matters.  There is but one hope, you die before suffering too much.  

Is this really what Jesus taught?

Actually, Jesus taught that He was the reward, not Heaven.  Our hope, our identity our meaning in life all flow from Him.  To walk with Jesus is to walk in ridiculous joy now!  You were meant for life.  Not some ambiguous golden paved road encampment.  Yes, there will be suffering.  Yes, you will still sin.  Yes you will still strive and never quite get everything you desired, but with Jesus you will get so much more.  The key is you don’t have to live in suffering.  You don’t have to live in sin.  You can live in Jesus, as it were.  What does that mean?  It means knowing what He actually taught.  It means trusting that your sins, every single one of them have been covered.  It means living in a world where you have a choice to either be the real you or be the you that fails.  Sin is tricky, because it convinces you that there is no other option.  Jesus came to not just wash away and forgive you of your sins but provide you with an option to live well!  Sin destroys life, but Jesus builds life in you.

The hope isn’t far off in a distant land, waiting for you to realize suicide is the fastest track there.  It’s here.  It’s in a savior who offers it to you every moment, every second you breathe.  It’s time for a revolution of hope.

Revolution of the Encourager

God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.  Right?  Well, not really.  The scripture is actually referring to temptation and having a way out of that temptation. Look again.

  1 Cor. 10:13 “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

When attempting to encourage others, stop using this phrase.  It’s incorrect, and not even close to what scripture says.  Stick to verses that talk about us having peace, us having a sound mind, us having a counselor in the holy spirit.  Better yet, buy the person a drink or a meal and listen.  Stop trying to encourage others with crappy lies.  

Everything happens for a reason.  Another encouragement that offers no real insight into what God does.  Let’s put this phrase in context shall we.  I just suffered the loss of a loved one.  Well, you lost that loved one for a reason.  Take this to its fullest end.  God caused the death of your loved one so that something else better might happen, or you might learn a lesson.  There’s no such thing as freedom of choice or consequences for actions but God walking around looking for ways to cause suffering so you might learn lessons.  Don’t twist my words. I absolutely believe God uses circumstances, even painful ones to teach lessons, but to go as far as saying He causes suffering so that we might learn lessons…well I’m not sure. Maybe.  But is that really encouraging to the person suffering?  Hey, God might have done this, be encouraged. I think there’s much better ways to encourage others in their suffering.

Start with a hug, and some actual loving encouragement from the heart.  Maybe this means say nothing.  Maybe it means using scripture.  Maybe a cooked meal.  Stop using terrible phrases.

Study the scripture below, and commit them to heart over the crappy phrases you’ve learned:

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”  John 16.33

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”  Psalms 46:1

“It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights. He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You give me your shield of victory, and your right hand sustains me; you stoop down to make me great. You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not turn.”  Psalm 18:32-36

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”  Isaiah 41:10

“The Lord gives his people strength.  The Lord blesses them with peace.” Psalm 29:11

“May the God of hope fill you all with joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”  Romans 15:13

Revolution of Gender

As a boy and a man I have heard on numerous occasions the phrase “A real man….” usually followed by a gun reference, a tool reference or a treats a woman a certain way reference.  Although I’m not a woman it’s quite easy to see the pressures they face in terms of what it means to be a woman; just go to a magazine aisle.  As a follower of Jesus and a member of the church for a long time now I’ve heard the same defining characteristics taught in church.  It’s usually a little less sex focused but nonetheless defining and honestly just wrong most of the time.  I’m not sure, but I’m pretty sure Jesus never said “A real man…”

What is gender?  It’s tough to define without personal beliefs within your definition.  It’s like trying to define race.  There are clearly biological and chemical differences between males and females but do these differences make one more qualified for a specific task than another?  Does this make men doing certain things and women doing certain things “right”?  In other words because I’m a man am I required to know about tools?  To make all the decisions in my home?  To be the one who initiates all romantic pursuits?  To know how to fire a gun?  To work and be the sole provider of finances within the home?  Wow.  Having a penis truly gave me some amazing skills.

Oh wait.

Have you ever met a woman who makes better financial decisions than a man?  Have you ever met a woman who can lift more weight than a man?  Have you ever met a woman who wants to be able to make decisions within her home?  Have you ever met a woman who’s down for being the one to go in for a kiss?  Yes.  Yes, you probably have.  But according to our rules on gender this woman isn’t behaving like a woman, so she must be in sin.  She must be corrected.  She must be told “A real woman…”

According to this level of thinking a hermaphrodite must be the ultimate human being because they are the only ones with the capabilities to do both manly and womanly duties.  Sound silly?  That’s what we’ve been essentially saying for centuries.  It’s time we be real about this.  Gender definition is based on preference, not “right and wrong.”  A penis and a vagina are different but the difference they play in our lives is up to us.  Be the woman you long to be, and be the man you long to be.  The only sin is trying to play God and define what that means for everyone.

Revolution of the Jerks

Have you ever met someone who made you feel like a million bucks?  It’s as though you were just embraced by warmth, joy, and patience for the very first time.  You feel all your pains, insecurities, anger, and guilt just melt away from the experience.  This is called kindness.  We don’t experience it very often but when we do, we recognize it and we long for more of it.  What blows my mind is that God cultivates kindness in us.  In short, kindness is a fruit of a plant grown inside our hearts.  We can water this plant, feed it, give it sun or we can be awful caretakers and never see the fruit this plant can bear.  Instead of a fruit born in us, we treat kindness as commodity for sale to the highest bidder of our affection.

Kindness is not for sale.

Kindness is meant to be free.

As a follower of Jesus you were given the gift of the Holy Spirit, which has the primary objective of making you a whole, perfect, complete person.  One of the jobs the Holy Spirit has is cultivating fruit inside you as you walk in relationship with God, refining you into a reflection of Himself.  In other words we’re meant to look more and more like God. Amazing.  Kindness is just one of the many fruits cultivated in a believer if they so choose. 

Some choose rudeness, bitterness, and contempt.  They choose to look down on others for not believing the way they do.  Some of those beliefs can be as shallow as music taste.  Then there are things like differences of religion, sexual choices, race, economics, etc.  that cause some not to be kind.  Another form of lacking kindness is those who believe that if they’re kind in one way, then there need not be any other reflections of kindness.  For example those that give money to help others, but still treat everyone with contempt, and a pretentious spirit.  One act of kindness, kind does not make.  You dig?

Kindness is proactive, selfless, and above all life changing.

If you are not being changed by kindness daily then you have missed out on much in life.  Some are too humble to receive kindness.  This isn’t real humility, it’s pride.  If you can’t receive kindness because it makes you weak, then you have missed out on life changing kindness.  Insecurity is also not kindness.  To believe you are somehow too bad to receive kindness because you’re not kind enough to others, or you’re not good enough at such and such, you have missed out on the very thing that could change all of that.   Some think that to be brutally honest is more important than kindness.  Truth is vitally important, but kindness is of equal importance.  Try to quit being such a stick in the mud, lighten up.  Life’s too short to be so focused on whether it’s important to tell someone their joke isn’t funny.  Laugh not because it’s funny but because it’s kind.  At least smirk, or somethin’.

To receive and give kindness requires you to stop thinking of solely yourself.  It requires you to think of others and love them.  Anything that robs you of the ability to be kind or receive kindness needs to be destroyed before your soul is.

Revolution of the Redeemed

What happened to the church? We’ve become so divided in society by political differences that we deem as Christian verses Non-Christian.  The bride Jesus calls spotless and lovely has once again become tainted.  Don’t get this twisted into me saying the Church is somehow beyond redemption, no far from it, we are already redeemed!  But somewhere along the way we have used that redemption as license to condemn, to contradict, and to preach a whole slew of messages that misrepresent the gospel.  I’m not against brothers calling out brothers, but when they aren’t even part of the family that’s when things get twisted.

What is appealing to those that don’t believe?  Where’s the message of hope?  The message of redemption?  The message of love?  I understand love is tricky because in our society we’ve come to view love as meaning “to each their own.”  Love was meant to be about kindness, truth, and patience… we in society only like the kindness part.  The church forgets that part the most ironically…is it any wonder we but heads with the secular world so much?

I get it.  Society has changed, the world has changed and so the church must change.  We fight battles and wars over such trivial things like we’re married to the world and not Jesus.  Because in marriage you fight over trivial things, oh forget it! Geez, I’m sorry I said anything.  Drop it already!   Yeah, kind of like that.  The thing is, although society has changed and the values of the world have changed, certain things must remain the same.  The church must be a place of love, truth, and life.  We must remain reflections of Jesus, not politicians waging wars over “marriage” or “gun ownership.”

Our job has and always will be to proclaim the good news.  To offer hope.  To offer ways out of sin, and to offer ways off the paths of destruction.  It’s time to stop bringing further destruction to the souls of those who disagree, and begin offering loving, lasting solutions to the real problems in the world.  It’s time for the church to be the salt that seasons the tasteless world and the light that sits on the hill guiding the world home.