Luke 18 :: Everyone Has a Faith Story

Luke 18

In today's chapter, we read about faith - the kind of faith that caused Jesus to stop and take note.  First, the story of the persistent widow reveals a consistent, never-say-quit sort of faith that continues to trust even when things are not going our way.  The disciples understood this imagery well because it had been thousands of years since God had promised his people a Messiah.  The 400 year window of silence from God had just ended with the coming of Jesus, so generations had come and gone with no word from God at all.

The second story is about two men who prayed, one morally proud of himself and the other a humble tax collector.  The pride of the Pharisee can be a barrier for Christ to do his work in us.  When we think that we have it all together, we often don't need God.  The tax man understood who he was in light of who God is, and this pushed him to humility.

Luke then includes an incident that Jesus had with his disciples.  As people were bringing babies to Jesus and other children running up to him, the disciples tried to push them away.  I can imagine what was going through their minds, "We just need some adult time with Jesus..."  Jesus makes it clear that the children are very important in his kingdom, and unless we come to him in simple faith and trust like a child, we won't get it.

Most translate the question of the official as "What must I do to inherit eternal life?"  There was clearly an understanding of entitlement inferred in the question by the official.  Jesus asks him a question, which the man doesn't answer (clearly he doesn't understand who Jesus is).  Jesus turns to the man's understanding, which is all about rule-following and self-sufficiency.  The man was looking for the one thing he could do to ensure that he gets some of this eternal life Jesus is talking of, but he is not willing to do anything.  His want has a price that he is not willing to pay.  He isn't willing to give up his stuff.

Finally, Luke shares a story of Jesus' encounter with a blind man.  The blind man could hear Jesus coming and began to shout out to him - louder than anyone else.  His desperate passion gets the attention of Jesus and when asked what he wants, he simply says "Master, I want to see again."  At that, Jesus heals him and says that his faith has saved and healed him.  No prayer, no walk down an isle, no commitment to a church, no baptism, no confession, no "right understanding" of justification by faith alone, no nothing but a simple "Master, I want to see again."  There was nothing and no one else for this man, but Jesus.

What is your faith story?  How did you get to where you are with God today - good or bad?  These five people in this chapter wrestled with their decision.  Have you wrestled with yours?  How simple was your path to Jesus?  What obstacles did you have to overcome to be able to trust Jesus with your life?

Happy Hump-Day Everyone!

Romans 12:1-2 :: Worship or Words

Romans 12:1-2 (The Message)  Click Here for the TNIV

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.  Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (The Message)

At the Springs, we like to frame the life of a Christ-follower in terms like holistic, complete, investment, all-in, 24/7.  We speak about the dangers of "compartmentalizing" your faith.  In case some of you have ever asked, here is where that comes from.  It actually comes from everywhere in the bible, but here is a passage where it is even more clearly defined than some.

You see, for some people, their faith is something that they have confined to a church service they attend once a week, or maybe even once a month.  That is the place where they "go to worship."  They rely on that one hour or so per week to "get them through" the rest of the week until they can do it all again.  In many ways it's like a sort of vending machine.  I'll put my dollar in on Sunday and hope God blesses me during the rest of the week.  During the week, though, they aren't putting in daily investments to keep the relationship strong.  Can you imagine making this sort of deal with your spouse?

Paul insists that following Jesus is about releasing your whole life - your everyday, ordinary life - to Jesus in all that you do.  To drive home his point he mentions sleeping, eating, going to work and walking around.  To show this is not something new, look back at Deteronomy 6:4-9 to see what instructions God gave the Israelites.  As followers of Jesus, we are expected to follow with all of our lives - our sleeping, eating, going to work and walking around.  As parents who follow Jesus, we are to teach our kids the ways of Christ in all of their lives - when they wake up, go to bed, sitting at home or driving around town.

Where in the world did we pick up the idea that we could relegate our faith to one day a week and not have it affect our daily rituals?  I think this may be one of the most damaging deceptions that we have bought into because it robs us of the more and better life that Jesus promised in John 10, and keeps us blind to the things of God during 99% of our week.

How does God impact your everyday life?  How have you made the move from compartmentalizing your faith to holistically experiencing your faith on a daily basis?  Is this even realistic to expect as much in today's world?

Romans 9:24-29 :: It Was, Is and Will Be About Grace

Romans 9:24-29 (The Message and TNIV)

"In the very place where it was said to them, 

   ‘You are not my people,’ 

   they will be called ‘children of the living God.'"

How good and pleasant it is to hear these words from Paul.  I am not his people, but I get to be called a child of the living God.  Can't you just see this on a decorative piece in the gift section of the local christian bookstore?

Paul quotes from Hosea 1:10 here.  Check out the original context of these words.  Just prior to this, in verse 4, God tells Hosea that he will put an end to the kingdom of Israel...break Israel's bow.  Led by Jehu, Israel had conducted a massacre at Jezreel.  God is definitely not heaping praise when Hosea 1:10 is uttered.  He is removing his blessing from Israel and now including Judah into the family.  This had to blow some minds.

Fast forward to Romans 9.  Paul is planting his argument firmly into the larger story of God's history.  God's inclusion of Gentiles in salvation is not unprecedented.  God has reached out to those who were not loved by him and loved them.  So, if we FF to today, should we expect anything less from God?

I am indebted to God's grace forever because he reached out to me, not in his family, and made me part of his family.  That grace ought to be the same grace that pushes me outside my comfort zone to those who are not yet part of the family.  That grace doesn't produce hospitality in me...it is the hospitality in me.

If you want to get the devotionals for chapter 9, click here for the pdf version of Chapter 9 in the Reading Plan.  Chapters 9 & 10 will be included in the updated pdf and epub files this weekend.

Acts 9 :: And Now, Paul...Rather Saul

Acts 9 in The Message and TNIV Translations

We were introduced to a man named Saul at the execution of Stephen in Chapter 7.  As I read that, I thought of Tyler Durden...you know, from Fight Club.  Tyler was young and mean, but he was also the badest of the bads.  Yeah, he fought, but most of the time Tyler was watching others, encouraging them, standing over them like some sort of guru.

I thought about that because I knew the rest of the story.  I knew who Saul was and what he did to the early Jesus-followers.  In today's chapter, we read that he was on a rampage.  Apparently, the stoning of Stephen set him on a spree.  He wreaking havoc on anyone and everyone who named the name of Jesus.  It's easy to jump on the guy, but realize that he was a Jew's Jew, an Israelite from the elite tribe of Benjamin; a strict and devout adherent to God's law; a fiery defender of the purity of my religion, even to the point of persecuting Christians; a meticulous observer of everything set down in God's law book" (Philippians 3:5-6).  If you were this committed to your faith in Jesus, and someone came around claiming that he was not who he said and that they had another Messiah, you would want to stop the spread of that as well.  This new movement was a threat to everything Saul had built his life upon.  He had to stop it.

I love the way Jesus gets right up in the face of Saul.  Jesus identifies himself as the one who Saul is persecuting (sounds a lot like "whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me").  Paul is literally blinded by his encounter with Jesus and went into to Damascus for three days - eating and drinking nothing.  He then spends  a few days learning from a man named Ananias and learns what it means to be a Jesus-follower - and gets consumed by the Holy Spirit.  Then heads out to be the largest proponent of the Jesus-Life the

Now that's a testimony!  Sometimes I wish I had a good, juicy testimony.

Note:  It's common thought that Jesus changed Saul's name to Paul, like he changed Simon's name to Peter.  This is not what the text tells us, though.  We aren't sure when or why, but in chapter 13, Luke refers to Saul as the one called Paul.  Saul is a Hebrew name and Paul is the non-Hebrew Gentile equivalent.  Paul may have changed his name to reflect his change of life and/or to assist him in reaching the non-Jewish people.  We are simply left to infer.

Acts 5 :: Can't Let It Go

Acts 5 in The Message and TNIV Translations

On Friday, I left everyone with a few questions, but didn't really give much thought.  The Ananias and Sapphira story leaves me with a mixed bag of emotions.  I have a hard time reconciling this with what I've seen of Jesus.  Peter seems to be going off-course from the way Jesus led.  Jesus didn't even come down this hard on Judas Iscariot, when he was betrayed.  I can do my best to clean this up and make it make sense, but this weekend I didn't feel like doing that.  I just wanted to let the tension exist in my soul as I asked God to work the truth into my soul.

I dug into the story and discovered something interesting.  There is a phrase that bridges this story to one in the Old Testament book of Joshua.  Luke uses the Greek word, nosphizo, which means "kept back" or "put aside for oneself."  This is not that unique except that in the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, Joshua also uses this phrase in Joshua 7:1 when giving account of a man named Achan, who kept back some plunder when God said to destroy everything.  Luke, being a Gentile, would have been accustomed to the Greek version of Joshua's account, and it is widely thought that he intended to draw a parallel to this story.

Interesting note:  While the story of Ananias and Sapphira is about not giving, Achan's story is about not destroying.  Both ended with a smiting.  The issue does not seem to be a giving issue or a destroying issue, but a deception issue.  Both parties were guilty of assuming something was their's that was not.  Selfishness moved both Achan and the couple to deception.  This selfish deceit had not place in the establishment of God's kingdom in the Promised Land, nor in the New Kingdom that Jesus had established with the establishment of the New Testament Church.

This is important because I do not believe Luke is giving us a lesson about giving - "If we don't give our money to the cause, then God will smite us."  I have heard teachers use this story to get people to dig into their wallets and pull out more - all of what they have.  What crap!  Not the intent here by Luke...in my humble opinion.  I believe that Luke is carrying on the theme he began to develop in chapter one.  This new way of life was going to involve 100% of us - not 50, 75 or 99, but 100%.  We cannot present ourselves to God and to each other as being all in when we are withholding.  The reaction of Peter in response to this sort of deception is not so far removed from Jesus' reaction to the Pharisees who confessed one thing with their mouths, but something very different with their lives.  Ananias and Sapphira had a much larger problem than simply wanting to keep the money.  This is not something that the early church could afford to take lightly, either.  Peter is setting precedent that this sort of deception is completely unacceptable and leads to death (sounds eerily familiar to the story of Adam and Eve, too).

In order for us to be the Church that God intends for us to be and make the impact He intends for us to make, we must not hold back - our hobbies, our jobs, our families, our thoughts, our online habits, our reading, our watching, our...whatever!  We cannot pretend to be all in and not be.  God may not strike us down cold, but don't mistake that for Him condoning this sort of pretense and deceit.  Can you imagine being part of a church where people were completely honest about their pursuit of the Christ-life, not pretending to be one thing while living out another?  What would that look like?  Would that be as refreshing to you as I think it would be for me?

Anyway, thank you for allowing me the time to process this weekend.  I hope that you found something helpful in your readings this past week.  Remember to read with an eye toward application.  If our reading doesn't change us, we aren't reading it the way God wants us to.  Get into the story and let the story get into you.  Pray, seek and find!

Acts 2 :: We Have Liftoff

Acts 2, The Message and TNIV translations

Acts 2 is one of the pivotal chapters in all of Scripture.  The gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed for the first time (and in dramatic fashion!).  Due to God's strategic timing, representatives of 15 countries (by my count) hear about Jesus and respond. Important side note: at this point, Christianity is still an exclusively Jewish faith.

Then we get the first, and perhaps to this day the most important description of the life and activity of the very first Christian church, the Church at Jerusalem.  The portion of the three thousand new believers who lived in Jerusalem began to live in community with each other in a way no one had ever seen before.  While much is made of the miracles and spiritual authority of the apostles, I strongly believe the first Christians' radical commitment to the life together was the more powerful proof of Christianity.  Jesus said that his disciples would be known by the love they had for each other, and the first believers fulfilled that by embracing each other, growing together, serving one another sacrificially, and enjoying each other's company on a daily basis.  And while they were devoted to each other, the community was not internally focused or closed off.  They lived this life together in a rather public way, in full view.  More and more people wanted to be a part of it and embrace the Savior who had transformed them.

I've read this passage dozens of times, maybe even hundreds (like I said, it's a really important passage), and the same question always seems to pop up for me: how did we start with Acts 2:42-47 and end up with what we experience as "church" today?  When you read this passage, what aspects of early church life do you long for?  What parts are you experiencing today, and what parts do you think are sorely lacking?

Matthew25::Sheep and Goats

Matthew 25

Somewhere around 1988, I was introduced to a singer named Keith Green. Keith was killed in a car accident in 1982 when he was only 28 years old. He is known by many as the godfather of Christian music. I remember a combination of two songs that he wrote that really messed with my teenage mind. The first song, "The Sheep and The Goats" was based on the last story in our chapter today. He always followed that song with a song called "Asleep in the Light." Though the song had a significant impact on me as a teenager, I think my life has not only forgotten the song, but let the message drift as well.

You see this story about the sheep and the goats really is about one word. The word is a small word, but it is the wedge that is driven between the two stories. The word is "DO." I know that my salvation, my relationship with God, is not based on what I do or don't do, but what He did. That's not what is at stake here. The issue here is how we respond to the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, the cold and the imprisoned. The people who "do" feed, give drink, provide shelter and visit the imprisoned, do so to Jesus. The ones who don't, don't.

What strikes me today is not how people I know respond or don't respond to the needy around us. What strikes me is how I respond. What I hope strikes you is how you respond. You see, when I see people in these situations, I have a tendency to think:

• What were their bad choices that led them here?
• If I give them something what will they do with it?
• If I make I contact, what will happen?
• If I give, I won't have money for...
• Isn't there a shelter close by?

The brutal fact is that when I see hungry people, I don't see Jesus. When I see thirsty people, I don't see Jesus. When I see homeless or imprisoned people, I don't see Jesus. I've been struck by the conversations we've been having over the past month at how the Jesus we are reading about doesn't match the Jesus we thought we knew. I can tell you that this is definitely not the Jesus I know.

What in the world do we do with this? Do we sell all our stuff and give it away to help others and join in a vow of poverty? How do we reconcile this with our quaint suburban lives? Am I just beating myself up for no reason? Can we really make a difference?

This is going to be a heavy finish to a great 4 weeks. It's not going to be easy, but it's going to be good. Today hasn't been easy for me, but it's been good. I hope some of you will wrestle with these words with me.

Matthew22::The Assault

Imagine a town where the city council happens to be controlled by a group of pastors of the largest local churches.  It is common for these pastors to appear in the local shopping mall and spontaneously make declarations or deliver a speech.  During the week leading up to Christmas, the mall is packed, and the people have a heightened religious awareness, even those who don't go to church regularly.  So people who are jockeying for positions of authority in this town make appearances at the mall each day, like political candidates running for office.  But all the buzz is about this new guy in town, truly a man of the people, who is killing these other guys in debate.  He is making them look so bad, and the people are flocking to him is such droves, that the polical machine is working 24 hours a day on attacks, smear campaigns, research into his past, coming up with "gotcha" questions, you name it.

This is the picture of Jerusalem in Matthew 22.  Jesus has chosen Jerusalem (the epicenter of Jewish religious and political life) and the week of Passover (the most important religious holiday) for the climax of his ministry.  It is also the place where the current power brokers in Israel will feel most threatened by him.  They're engaging him daily in high-stakes verbal wars that draw big crowds.  They retreat, plan a new attack, then go in again.  And when it becomes clear that they're not going to win in a debate with this guy, they will make new and more desperate plans.

I think one of Matthew's greatest contributions to the gospel story is that he helps us see the degree of opposition Jesus faced.  He had to manage it for most of the three years of his ministry to preserve his life and personal freedom, but at the end the gloves come off.  Matthew debunks the notion we have of Jesus and his disciples merrily travelling across the countryside with a message of peace and love, and being warmly received wherever they went.  It was rough going for three years.  God appeared to the world in the flesh, and the world dogged him every step of the way.

We are blessed to live in a different era with more personal freedoms than the first Christians did.  But truly and fully living out the Christ-life is still counter-cultural and will ruffle feathers.  Are you willing to embrace life as a Christ-follower if it means personal loss or opposition?

Matthew20::The Kingdom Upside Down

The last will be first, the first will be last, the least will be greatest and the greatest will be least.  Jesus' Kingdom will be just like any other--except exactly the opposite.

If we're honest, Jesus grates against our understanding of fairness.  If some lifelong degenerate (as we perceive it) turns to Jesus at the last minute, there should be some kind of lower-class designation for him in the Kingdom, if he gets in at all.  We could all name people who might not make the cut if we had our druthers.  To be honest (again), our churches often operate on this unwritten rule.  Some Christians are better than others.  That seems obvious to us.  But the grace, the love, the value imparted to each, according to Jesus' story, is the same.  Think about it this way: heaven may be populated with people who make us rather uncomfortable.

And what about the other end of the scale?  What does it take to be a rock star in the Kingdom?  Be a slave, Jesus says.  Think about it this way:  God may be applauding people in heaven who make us rather uncomfortable.

It's a matter of perspective.  If I am the benchmark, then my evaluation of others is based on them in comparison to me.  But God does not operate on my convenient scale.  If Jesus is the benchmark, then the most moral, the most dedicated, the hardest working person is still a long, long way from Jesus.  It's like a world full of couch potatoes swimming against Michael Phelps.  Can you imagine any one of them making a big deal about how much better he was than anyone else...except Michael?  Is there really much point in awarding a silver or bronze medal in such a race?  Or complaining that some other schmuck has an unfair advantage?  That's how silly we must look when we compare ourselves to each other.  And it takes so little for us to adopt such a pathetic mindset: all we have to do is take our eyes off of Jesus.

I always walk away from this teaching feeling the need apologize to a lot of people.  Maybe you do too.  Go for it if you want.  But at least, let's think a bit higher of each other this weekend, serve each other a bit more.  Aim for the bottom, because in the Kingdom, that's the top.

Matthew11::Unforced Rhythms of Grace

Matthew11

How could this paragraph not stand out to me this morning?

28-30"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

I often find it easy to complain.  Easy to complain about the state of Christianity today, the state of the local church and the state of my life.  Underneath the criticism lies an honest exhaustion though.  I have been a Christian for 30 years, so I should be hitting my prime with this following-Jesus-thing, right?  Instead, when it comes to faith, I am more often tired and worn out than I am refreshed and rejuvenated.  I find myself longing to get away - not always to get away with Jesus, but to just get away.  I need Jesus to show me how to recover my life, how to take a real rest.  I need to learn the unforced rhythms of grace.  I want a faith that fits me correctly and isn't so heavy.  I want to live freely and lightly.

Is this kind of life possible?  Are you experiencing it?  There are moments and seasons where I live in this. Everything seems to work.  I'm not talking about everything being good because some of these times have included difficulties in my life of some sort - sick friend, death of a family member, loss of a job, etc..  It's easy to mistake unforced rhythms of grace for prosperity.  The bible talks about us sharing in the fellowship of Christ's sufferings - not sure about you, but I don't like suffering and fellowship together.  When it's all working the way God intended, it's good.  When it's not, I find that it's an issue with me - with my view, with my position or with my expectation.

What is it that is good?  For me it's good when I find myself wanting to talk to Father.  It's good when I find myself satisfied by His Word.  It's good when I see Father working in little things around me, like in the grocery store or at the park.  It's good when I experience the presence of Christ in the midst of difficult days.  It's good when I rest in His provision for my life instead of longing for more.  It's good.

What about you?  Have you ever experienced these unforced rhythms of grace?  When is it good for you?  

Matthew07::Two Houses

Matthew07

At the end of this incredible sermon, Jesus says, "These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on (7.24)."

One of the greatest dangers of living in a "christian culture" is that we view the words of Jesus as nice little fortune cookies for life. They look good in a frame on a wall, but they are not engrained in who we are as a people. They sound good on Sunday mornings, but don't let them really effect my day-to-day life. Being a Christ-follower is invasive. Following Christ gets in the way, and in the middle of a lot of things. Think about a typical day. It gets into how we wake up and view the day ahead. It gets into how we wake our kids up, how we pack their lunches and how we send them off to school. It gets into how we sit in traffic on the way to work. It gets into the things we think about as we drive. It gets into how we perform at our jobs. It gets into the breaks we take, the emails we forward and the conversations we have in the office. It gets into our responses to traffic on our ways home. It gets into how we treat our families when we do get home. It gets into the activities our kids are involved in and how involved we are. It gets into how we help our kids with homework and how we tuck them in at night. It gets into what we watch on television. It gets into our relationship with our spouses - physically, emotionally and spiritually. It gets into our vacations and our weekends, our vehicles and our homes, our clothes and our toys.

"If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock...But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach (7.24-27)."

Being a Christ-follower impacts more of my life today than it did 5 years ago, but it's not near what it should be or what I want it to be. I still compartmentalize and I still work outside this standard of living. I still do things I don't want to do, and fail to do things that I do want to do. I don't think I am alone in this struggle, but I hope I'm not alone in saying it out loud...or typing it in the blog.

What hit you today? Did you make it through the chapter or did something stop you in your tracks?

Core Practice :: Giving Away My Life

I give away my life to fulfill God’s purposes.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is true worship.
Romans 12:1

What does it mean to be a Christian in our community? Too often, it means this: go to church, support the church financially to some degree, and don't do bad things. If you're really into it, you add a Bible study or Sunday School class, listen to Christian music, maybe put a fish bumper sticker on your car. Yawn.

The distinguishing characteristic of the first-century church was the radical love they expressed to each other, and to a world in need. Read Acts 2. They were devoted to each other. They shared everything: meals, their homes, their possessions if someone needed it. They put together a team just to make sure the widows and orphans were taken care of. They gave their lives away. Why? Because Jesus gave his life away, and they were followers of Jesus.

Let's redefine what it means to be a Christ follower in our community. Make our table groups bases for giving away to our neighbors. Keep our eyes open for the needs we can meet as followers of Christ. Don't allow our lives to be defined by religious activity, but by Jesus-inspired giving.

This core practice is connected to the following core beliefs: Stewardship, Compassion

Parenting this practice:
One of the biggest mistakes we can make as parents is to presume that we are fulfilling this practice by giving our lives away to our kids. We are not. Our kids need to see us giving our lives away to our spouses, our neighbors, and other people in need, and they need to practice giving their lives away with us. The two approaches produce very different results. Which outcome do you want?

If you give your life away TO your kids:

• your kids learn that the world revolves around them
• your kids lose respect for you
• your kids' view of a healthy marriage is skewed because they see parents who focus on them and not each other
• your marriage will tank when the kids leave home because your family's entire focus leaves with them

If you give your life away WITH your kids:

• your kids learn how to give their lives away and fulfill God's purposes in their lives
• your kids make an impact in the lives of others
• your family has great bonding experiences
• your kids respect you for the way they see you give your life away to your spouse, neighbors, and others, and aspire to follow your example. you set them up to be a better husband or wife one day.
• your relationship with your spouse will be much better; in fact, all your relationships will be better
• your kid will lose that college scholarship you were giving your whole life to get them (just kidding, I couldn't resist).