Discipleship | Discipleship at Messiah

Be My Valentine

Posted on 2/14/13 by On the road with Jesus.

For God so loved…that He gave…His son…. John 3:16

Today, Valentine’s Day, love is on everybody’s mind, everywhere you look and crosses lips where it’s seldom at any other time mentioned. We are told by retailers to say it with flowers, chocolate, jewelry and anything else they’re trying to peddle.

But we have a problem with the word “love.” We say, “I love ice cream, my house, baseball, to swim, listen to good music and my wife” (not necessarily in that order). We can really get confused about what love means. I once heard Stuart Briscoe say we think love means “to like an awful lot.” However, it is possible to love someone and not like them at all.

The benchmark, the standard of love’s expression is found in these words: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) And that provides us with the clearest idea of love. It is not in words but deeds. It is not about how we feel (as nice as that might be) but what we do.

Even in the church we are not always clear. I heard someone say that Jesus came to show us God’s love. It is as if our only message to the world is “smile, God loves you.” It’s great to know that but the real message is because of God’s love Jesus died on the cross for my sins (yours too).

Then Jesus really set the bar for us when He said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12) Nothing less than to love the way God loves will do. The only way that can happen is to receive God’s love and let God express that love through us.

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It All Belongs to God

Posted on 2/7/13 by On the road with Jesus.

Therefore Jesus told them, “The right time for me has not yet come; for you any time is right.” -John 7:6
I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation. -II Cor. 6:2b

“Our leisure, even our play, is a matter of serious concern. There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.” -C.S. Lewis

We moderns love the middle ground. We try to balance things, be “well-rounded,” no extremes. We try to level “the playing field,” lower everyone to a common denominator. Even in our spiritual life we don’t want to get too serious or “fanatical.” We want to make sure we give God his due but there are compartments of our life which exclude or at least ignore God. Some of those are our jobs, our leisure, our politics. Each person probably has a different list.

But it won’t work. Either it all belongs to God, includes God, or nothing does. Satan knows this very well. So Lewis is right. He contests every second, every minute, hour, day, every year. Offer this minute, this hour, this day to God.

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Don’t Forget

Posted on 1/30/13 by On the road with Jesus.

Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard. – Revelation 3:3

One of the constant warnings God issued to His people in the Old Testament was not to forget, often to little avail. One of His most common charges to them was that they had forgotten. Specifically they forgot: the “things they had seen,” “the covenant,” that they had “provoked” the Lord, “all his benefits.” Most of all they forgot “The Lord who brought [them]…out of Egypt.” In contrast, God would not forget them or His promises.

Human beings are subject to spiritual amnesia. We forget. We forget God’s blessings. We forget our sins. We forget our promises to God. We even forget God. Phillip Yancey confesses that when he takes a trip, gets out of his normal routine, “it will suddenly occur to me that, except for a cursory blessing before meals, I have not given God a single thought all day.” I don’t know about you but that “hits me dead center.”

At it’s simplest, living a life in the Spirit is living in remembrance of God. That is, to live our lives paying attention to God, with an awareness of living it before God.

However, that does not come easily or naturally. It takes the “D” word, the word which our nature and our culture want to banish. It takes Discipline which involves practice, focus, intention. We will slip back at times and need to repent, but as we walk with Him, we expect that our sense of his presence will be more constant and more important to us. So in the midst of so many distractions, which challenge us all, remember God.

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Thanksgiving

Posted on 11/20/12 by On the road with Jesus.

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (I Thess 5:18)

Someone has said, “The most intense moments of thankfulness are not found in times of plenty, but when difficulties abound.” It was that attitude that led Abraham Lincoln to proclaim the first official Thanksgiving Day in the midst of our country’s civil war.

Some people simply do not know how to give thanks. The London Times reported this story several years ago:

Thousands of letters sent each year to God end up in a sorting office in Jerusalem. According to the Associated Press, the letters arrive from all over the world in the city’s undeliverable mail department. “We have hundreds of thousands of letters sent either to God or Jesus Christ, and for some reason they come to Jerusalem,” said post office spokesman Yitzak Rabihiya.

In one letter an Israeli man asked God for 5,000 shekels ($1,000), to ease his poverty. Postal workers were so moved that they sent him 4,300 shekels.

“After a month, the same person wrote again to God,” Mr. Rabihiya explained, “but this time he wrote, ‘Thank you, God, for the contribution, but next time please don’t send it through those postmen. They’re thieves; they stole 700 shekels’.”

In the classic story, “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,” the Grinch expects cries and wailings after he steals all the village gifts and even food. Instead he hears them singing a Christmas carol. And he learns, “Christmas resides not in things but in the heart which is thankful. He could not steal their gratitude.”¹

In Joe Batten’s book, Tough Minded Leadership, he says that gratitude is “highest form of mental and spiritual health.” It creates humility. I defy you to maintain pride while thanking God. It also produces generosity and overcomes discouragement.

But most of all it leads to praise which honors God. In the last book of the Bible when God’s great plan is coming to its conclusion these word reverberate through all creation: “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign.” (Rev. 11:17)

My prayer for you and me is for a grateful heart.

¹Brett Blair, http://www.eSermons.com, November, 2003

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His Eye Is On the Sparrow

Posted on 11/15/12 by On the road with Jesus.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny ? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father…. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. –Matthew10:29,31

For those of us living in the NE corridor of the United States and the path of Hurricane Sandy, today we are either breathing a sigh of relief because we were spared or we are assessing the damage and trying to make sense of it all. And in the midst of a disaster like this we need perspective. As I have been thinking about it I just want to share what I wrote after the Haitian earthquake of 2010. Read it.

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“Prayer—Just Do It”

Posted on 10/30/12 by On the road with Jesus.

“I remember you in my prayers….pray…for all God’s people. And…me….” -Ephesians 1:16b; 6:18,19

Someone once said, “Ask a Baptist for $50—he’ll say, “let’s pray.”‘
‘”Call on a Methodist to pray—he’ll say, “here’s $50.”‘

The reason that is funny is that Methodists (at least the modern ones) are not noted for their praying. Most of us will certainly acknowledge the need to pray but look on it a little like the little boy who one day asked his grandmother to take him to the circus.

She replied, “I can’t, I’ve got to go to go to Prayer Meeting.”
He thought for a minute and said, “Grandma, if you’d go to the circus just once, you’d never want to go to prayer meeting again.”

Even preachers are not immune to a certain reluctance to pray. One Sunday morning, a preacher went to visit a neighboring church. The pastor called on him to pray and he replied, “Pray yourself, I’m on my vacation.”

Prayer is problematical. Even many who say that believe in prayer see it as getting in touch with your deepest self, or visualizing what you want and then doing it. It is associated with all kinds of strange notions, ideas, and even drugs. Timothy Leary (psychedelic drug guru) once said, “to pray properly you must be out of your mind.”

R. Gregor Smith says that a majority of “even conscientious church members” have given up the habit of private prayer in the conventional sense. If he is right and certainly there is evidence he is, we are in serious trouble. Because James Montgomery was right, when he echoed John Wesley, calling prayer the Christian’s “vital breath.” Prayer is the most distinctive Christian act. Biblically and historically, Luther was on solid ground when he said if one does not pray then he is not Christian.

In the Ephesian letter Paul begins by assuring the believers that he is praying for them. He closes by urging them to pray for each other and for him. All that he has called them to do is to be done in prayer.

“I find I am better or worse as I pray more or less…I can never be better in life than I am faithful in prayer…when prayer lags, life sags…If you know how to pray, you know how to live.” (E. Stanley Jones)

If we want renewal, if we want to be Christian, to be better Christians, then we must pray. There is no option.

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Whom Shall I Love?

Posted on 10/13/12 by On the road with Jesus.

Love your neighbor as yourself Luke 10:27

” Few stories have so made an impression on the world as this. It has been called most practical of parables. Read the story

A lawyer asks the most important question―Jesus was often asked. “What shall I do to inherit eternal life? A difficult question, he thought. “Love God, Love your neighbor,” Jesus answers simply.

Now the lawyer asks what he thinks is an unanswerable question. “Who is my neighbor―whom shall I love? The theologian, Helmut Thielicke calls this ”theological fencing.” He says, “He is itching to slip like an eel from his grasp if this Jesus would reach out for his soul. He had rubbed his inner man, as it were, with soap. Countless people do that. Any pastor can tell you about these slippery souls….As long as a man has some pious questions to ask he doesn’t need to act.” To speculate and brood about theological questions to escape responsiblity is wrong!

This shows a basic misunderstanding of love. It has no boundaries to love except need and ability. “Love ‘like the sun, which does not ask on what it shall shine, or what it shall warm, but shines and warms by the very law of its own being’” (William Trench).

Jesus tells the story, the story most often called “The Good Samaritan.” A man beaten and robbed along the road and left for dead is helped not by the religious who pass by but by one normally an enemy to this man.

And Jesus asks, “Who was the neighbor to the man? A different question than the lawyer had asked, one which reverses the question. A neighbor is one who shows mercy, has compassion, one with a “big heart.” And we are reminded that, “Anybody who loves must always be prepared to have his plans interrupted.”(168).

To whom am I a neighbor? To whom are you a neighbor?

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We have found him

Posted on 10/2/12 by On the road with Jesus.

We have found the one -John 1:45

“The Exciting Discovery—“We Have Found Him”

Have you ever tried to tell someone of something that is so unusual, so different from the normal or expected that you knew when you told it you wouldn’t be believed.

Try to imagine John’s task—to tell of something so wonderful, so absolutely unique as to be unbelievable. Then read and watch as he lays the groundwork, then builds his case to prove that the creator becomes flesh and blood and lives on this earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth (John 1:19-51).

He begins by calling some eye witnesses. First, he calls the most prominent and influential religious leader of his time—John The Baptist (called simply John by writer).

The Baptist has raised quite a stir with his preaching, baptizing and a group from the religious establishment has been sent to find out what he’s all about? Who could he be? Is he the one to look for? The one God has promised? Are you he?

To John’s credit, he makes sure they are pointed to Christ and not a substitute (himself). Do you know hard that would be. John is the most popular person around, with all the acclaim and success which goes with that. And he must now begin to point the crowds away from himself. He immediately begins to fade into the background. I am a voice only. He is greater than I am. Can you imagine a politician, a great religious leader downplaying his importance?
He tells his own disciples, the time has come, he has come. You are not to follow me but him. The faithfulness of John in doing his job is now clearly seen—“they followed Jesus.”

And immediately they become evangelists, that is, they began to tell others. “We have found him.” So the cycle begins all over. Those who find Jesus want to…must, tell others about Him.

“Hallelujah, I have found Him who my soul so long has craved! Jesus satisfies my longings; through his blood I now am saved.” (From the hymn, “Satisfied” by C.T. Williams)

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Suffering and Growing

Posted on 8/30/12 by On the road with Jesus.

The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name [of Jesus]…. In those days…the number of disciples was increasing. –Acts 5:41, 6:1

“this century [the 20th],…has produced more martyrs than all other centuries combined.” – Philip Yancey

Recently, as I was looking to update for our church newsletter something I once wrote, I went to the website of the World Methodist Council. This headline caught my attention: “General Conference in Fiji to Begin Wednesday.” When I read the news report and some background I found out that the government had not allowed the Methodists to meet for four years. This year they have been given permission to meet under some very strict rules.

Tensions between the MethodistChurch in Fiji and the government erupted in May 2009 when the rulers of the nation took steps to ban the annual conference, cancelled weekly radio programs associated with the church and even arrested nine Methodist leaders…. Police Commissioner Brigadier General Ioane Naivalurua has warned there may be a police presence to ensure attendees do not stray off topic from a pre-approved agenda.

This kind of experience is not an unfamiliar one in church history. Christians have often faced great personal and corporate obstacles to their journey with Jesus.

Some years ago Susan Bergman published a book entitled Martyrs: Contemporary Writers on Modern Lives of Faith. It is stories of those 20^th Century Christians all over the world who have sacrificed their lives in witness to Jesus Christ. In the reviews of the book, Philip Yancey says, “this century,…has produced more martyrs than all other centuries combined.” The 21^st century may well pass that. Richard Wurmbrand, who spent 14 years in prison for his faith, says that a third of the Christian church today must operate in secrecy, under the threat of extermination.

In our own denomination, depending on your source, there are now estimated to be as many as 70 million Methodists in the world. In the last generation some areas of the world have shown staggering increases while others have declined. What is thought provoking is that the growth areas almost always correspond to those areas of the world where it is costly to be a Christian and the declining areas are where Christians enjoy privilege and comfort. For instance in a 30 year period; Methodism in Africa grew by 178%; Asia 319%; in the Pacific 158%; and in Latin America 583 % (source World Methodist Council).

In those same years churches in both Europe and the United States were in decline.

Even where the church is declining, there are exceptions, individual congregations which defy the pattern and grow. Again almost without fail, those churches are where the cost of being a disciple is made real in some way.

The evidence is clear. History has demonstrated over and over that Christianity thrives on hardship. The reason is clear. Discipleship, Jesus said, is the way of the cross. It is costly to be a follower of Christ. When we try to make it easy for people to be Christians, we distort the Gospel and at best, it survives sterile and unproductive, or it dies.

For those willing to take the costly way of the cross there is a life of joy and power.

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They Devoted Themselves

Posted on 8/8/12 by On the road with Jesus.

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Acts 2:42

Isn’t it amazing the physical feats of which humans are capable? We are being treated to some stunning examples in the 2012 Olympics. We have heard stories of great sacrifice and costly commitment from runners, swimmers, gymnasts and others to compete as an Olympian. As we were talking about this with friends from our Small Group the comment was made: “Wouldn’t it be great if Christians were as devoted as these athletes?”

And I remembered. That is the exact term used to describe those early Christians in the book of Acts—devoted. We say, dedicated, committed, focused. Because that is what it takes to accomplish important things, especially doing one’s best. We do not become like Jesus automatically, by coasting or accidently. Being devoted speaks to priorities. Devotion ultimately is about lifestyle.

Of course Christians are devoted to God/Jesus. And that finds practical expression in devotion to the good news (apostles’ teaching), to each other (the fellowship), sacramental acts (the breaking of bread) and prayer. All these things result in “doing good.”

The surprising thing is that as popular as the Olympics is our culture does not like the idea of devotion/commitment. It is not a popular idea. But it is the driving force for those who belong to Jesus.

Filed under: character, Dedication, Discipleship, Jesus, Life style, Olympics | Comments Off on They Devoted Themselves

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