The Journey | Discipleship at Messiah

Tempted?

Posted on 9/19/13 by On the road with Jesus.

And no temptation is irresistible. You can trust God to keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it. (I Corinthians 10:13 LB)

Years ago I read a story that offers some insight into temptation. An antelope and a lion entered a diner and took a booth near the window. When the waiter approached, the antelope said, “I’ll have a bowl of hay and a side order of radishes.”

“And what will your friend have?”

“Nothing,” replied the antelope.

The waiter persisted. “Isn’t he hungry?”

“Hey, if he were hungry,” said the antelope, “would I be sitting here?”

Temptation is a powerful force in our life. If the temptation is strong enough, even a friend can “eat” a friend.

There are a lot of temptations which can make it difficult for those trying to follow Jesus. I just read today about a study on will power:

Dr. Loran Nordgren, a senior lecturer at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in Chicago, found “we tend to overestimate how much self-control we will have against temptation when we’re not in the ‘heat of the moment.’”… Dr. Nordgren warned that “Those who are most confident about their self-control are the most likely to give in to temptation.” His conclusion was that a key element in overcoming temptation is simply humility. Recognizing our weaknesses and avoiding situations where we are tempted.

Some other important ways which enable resistance are:

A definite commitment to God. (priorities)
Absorbing scripture, which the Bible calls the “sword of the
Spirit” (“Your word have I hid in my heart.”)
Accountability of a Christian community. Close
relationships with other followers of Jesus.

Temptation does not lessen with spiritual growth and health. It becomes more subtle, sophisticated and powerful. But we also have greater power and resources to overcome it.

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It Took a Miracle

Posted on 9/3/13 by On the road with Jesus.

“‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” -Matthew 19:5-6

In a few days, my wife, Alana and I will celebrate the day last year when we stood before God and a community of believers and promised to be husband and wife until “death do us part.” Now that I think about it, it was not last year at all, but it was 50 years ago, 1963! It only seems like a short time.

Seriously, what does it take to make it to 50 years? And when I answer that question, for us, I know it took a miracle of God’s grace. For there could hardly have been two people more different. Alana has said that hardly a day passed that we didn’t disagree about something. And sometimes those disagreements have, “to put it mildly,” been painful. We have faced life and death together, joys and sorrows, health and sickness. There has been conflict. Oh, how there has been conflict. As I said to her not long ago, “we sometimes drive each other crazy.” You get the point.

What there has never been, for either of us, is doubt that we love and are committed to each other “til death do us part.” We know and understand that both of us are imperfect people and that forgiveness is at the heart of any close human relationship (also between God and any person).

To put it in perspective and so you understand; I wish we could have 50 more years. I love you, Alana. Thank you for what you have given and are giving to me. And thank you, Lord for making it possible.

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Encouraged To Be Disciples

Posted on 8/20/13 by On the road with Jesus.

Paul sent for the disciples and, after encouraging them, said goodbye. -Acts 20:1(NIV)

Some years ago, I attended a conference at Asbury Theological Seminary. I don’t know if the conference leaders had consulted with one another or not. But there was a recurring theme that I didn’t really notice at first.

After the week was over and I returned to the church where I was pastor. And on Monday morning I met the jarring reality of everyday life—Council Meeting, etc. It was a typical Sunday/Monday morning syndrome of pastoral life.

It “so happened” (God’s work) my daily reading was in the book of Acts. And one day something caught my attention: “Paul sent for the disciples and, after encouraging them, said good-by…”

Something started to stir—first, just a little bubble. I’m dense, but God is equal to the task! Without me knowing it, for two weeks God had been putting something together. The recurring theme—encouraged, strengthened, Barnabus (Son of encouragement?). And then I remembered Jesus’ charge to His disciples, what we call “The Great Commission”: “Make disciples.” But it was the final words: “I’m with you,” which brought it together.

Encouragement of his people is a priority for God. He knows about the Sunday/Monday morning syndrome, the wear and tear of the battle, the discouragement brought by the deceitfulness of sin, the failures of our weakness.

The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18)

Encouragement is also a key element in discipleship, both in the being and the making. We tend to loose sight of this element, perhaps in the excitement of new people coming into the church. But later, as the apostles return from their missions, their ministry to the Christians is encouragement.

God’s method of encouragement is that human beings filled with His Spirit, stand with one another to encourage and strengthen. In the book of Hebrews we are told to encourage one another daily (Hebrews 3:13).

Bothers/Sisters God has made provision for Monday morning, for the discouragement that lurks around the corner, for the draining effect of the battle.

That is the primary ministry that we are to have to one another. Any consideration of the way we shape our lives together must keep that in focus.

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Starting Again

Posted on 7/26/13 by On the road with Jesus.

God’s kindness leads you toward repentance. -Romans 2:4b

It happens all the time with children. In the middle of some task they mess it up and you tell them to start over. They’re telling you something and get it all confused. So you say, “Just slow down and start at the beginning.”

Haven’t we all wanted to start over? I wish I had it to do over. But in life, we don’t get that opportunity do we? To go back to square one is not an option is it?

The Bible says it is. God calls us, offers us an opportunity to start over, to start with a clean slate.

It begins with something called repentance which means to change one’s mind, heart, life. In the historic Christian communion service, participation is invited for those who “truly and earnestly repent of your sins and intend to lead a new life.”

The trouble is that repentance doesn’t come easily. Then President Bill Clinton, speaking to a Prayer Breakfast in 1998 put it in perspective. He said, “I don’t think there is a fancy way to say that I have sinned.…For us, turning does not come so easily. It takes an act of will for us to make a turn. It means breaking old habits. It means admitting that we have been wrong, and this is never easy. It means losing face. It means starting all over again. And this is always painful. It means saying I am sorry. It means recognizing that we have the ability to change. These things are terribly hard to do. But unless we turn, we will be trapped forever in yesterday’s ways.” ^^Clinton’s quote ended with this prayer: “Lord help us to turn, from callousness to sensitivity, from hostility to love, from pettiness to purpose, from envy to contentment, from carelessness to discipline, from fear to faith. Turn us around, O Lord, and bring us back toward you. Revive our lives as at the beginning and turn us toward each other, Lord, for in isolation there is no life.”-Q

Repentance means “coming to self,” “turning”, or returning (from the OT). In the NT it is to change one’s mind for the better, have a better mind.

It not only is at the beginning of the Christian Journey but is an on-going necessity of the Christian life. Matthew Henry wrote, “Repentance is a daily duty.”

I am told in the St. Louis airport there is a large watch with hands that run backward. Beneath it are the words, “Make Time Run Backward!” If it were possible to do this and start again what a difference it would make.

There is good news! You can start again! Turn toward God.

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The Meanest Man

Posted on 7/16/13 by On the road with Jesus.

Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. –II Corinthians 5:17

“The meanest man in Montgomery County,” is how my uncle, Don Ledbetter (known as “Doodle” by relatives and hometown people), was described to his son, D.K., by a man who knew him from his hometown. Doodle’s funeral was Sunday in a rural church in North Carolina. Where he had pastored for 20 years (fresh out of seminary), in a church built during his time there, a packed congregation listened to the story of an amazing life. For more than 50 years, as pastor, teacher, District Superintendent and a hospital chaplain he served the Jesus he loved. He completed a doctoral program in his seventies.

He was more like a brother to me. My mother, his oldest sister, was more like a mother to him because their mother had died when he was five. We played baseball together, hunted, etc. and attended college together. I lived with his family for a while during my college days. Though I moved away and didn’t get to see him much in later years, he was always special to me. He often would have me preach in his church when I would visit.

The impact of his life on so many was obvious from the stories shared and the conversations with former classmates and friends of his and mine.

If you wondered how he got from the “meanest man” to that, you probably have guessed by now. He knew Jesus. As Paul Harvey used to say here’s the rest of the story. The man who called him “the meanest man…” continued. “I’m not a Christian but if I were, I want what Doodle has.” What better evidence of a changed life.

I hope people who know me would say the same: “I want what he has.”

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“God’s Children Bear A Family Resemblence”

Posted on 7/9/13 by On the road with Jesus.

I John 3:2 we are God’s children now; …we will be like him.

All important events in the life cycle are connected to certain rituals which most of us know and in which we readily share. For instance—when a baby is born:

“Who does she/he look like?”
“He has his Dad’s nose.”
“Her face is shaped just like her mother’s.”

Now, often that is not a fact so much as expectation. We look for and expect a child to resemble its parents and family members. As a child grows it usually exhibits more and more traits of family. It may not be so noticeable to those who see it every day but is often obvious to others.

So when John says we are God’s children, it raises some expectations. If you were reading this in the Greek text, it would say “NOW we are God’s children.” The emphasis is on the “now.” In context, it is clear that those who are trusting Jesus belong to God’s family.

To say we are God’s children has powerful implications. Not the least of which is that it establishes our identity. To know who you are, to have a sense of identity, may well be one of the most important factors in your mental and emotional health. If you do not have a sense of identity, if you do not know who you are, chances are, you have some real problems in your life. This is especially important in our day, because we live in a world where there is a tendency to treat a person as an object, to manipulate a person, to see a person as disposable, to see one as useful only as he/she serves me and my ends.

To have a sense of belonging, to have a sense of identity is also vital to our spiritual health. Often when someone introduces me, they tell my name but add something to that. He’s our neighbor, a pastor at Messiah Church, Alana’s husband. And the less they know me personally, the more likely they are to do that, to identify me by my function, my job.

Probably you have been identified, not by who you are so much, as by some relationship—Joe Blow’s wife or Susie Blow’s husband, or by some job you perform.

But when we say we are God’s children, it establishes our identity, not by our function or even just our relationship but OUR NATURE. The CHRISTIAN LIFE IS NOT SIMPLY TAKING ORDERS FROM GOD OR EVEN FOLLOWING JESUS’ EXAMPLE. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE IS LIVING OUT A NEW NATURE, being part of a new kind of people. Obviously as to “behaving like God’s children” most of us have a ways to go. The child is not yet what he/she may become. But the genes are there and with normal growth and development maturity will come.

And we have that amazing promise: “We shall be like Him!” “Not yet but shall be” is essential to being human. There is always the tension between what I am (performance) and what I shall be. As Gordon Allport has said, “All people are in transit.”

Are you anxious to be like Jesus? Keep trusting him and following and it will happen.

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A New Song

Posted on 7/3/13 by On the road with Jesus.

Psalm 40:3- “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.”

How much, how often do you praise God? For most of us (myself included) it’s not nearly enough. Part of reason for that I suspect is that we see praise as motivated by good things happening to us, things going well for us, etc. Certainly it is important that we are grateful and express that. But praise for God goes beyond that. It is an important part of our discipleship.

It is clear from Scripture that praise pleases God. Here are just a few examples:

“For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise” (I Chron.16:25)
Psalm 33:1- “it is fitting for the upright to praise him.”
100:4- “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.”
The last 5 psalms begin and end with “Praise the Lord.”
150:6- “let everything that has breath praise the LORD.”
I Peter 4:11- “so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ”

Praise has a profound effect on us. It makes God real and triggers joy in my heart. Few things so rejuvenates us as to praise God. When the New Testament describes the church it is this way: “We’ll be praising Christ, enjoying each other.”( Phil 1:26 msg) Does that sound like the church you know? What about you personally?

Besides that, it does something to those around us. It makes Jesus attractive. I’m not talking about some of the mindless examples—slogans, or trite phrases that seem artificial and forced. From Charles Wesley’s first hymnbook (1737) this song was sung:

Let every Land their Tongues employ,
And hymns of Triumph sing.
…
Release his Praise with awe profound,
Let Knowledge guide the Song.
Nor mock him with a solemn Sound
Upon a thoughtless Tongue.

Phillipians 1:10-11 reads:

You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover’s life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God. (msg)

It has been said, “God is preparing the whole universe to be an orchestra of praise and adoration to his Son.” (FB Meyer)

I read about the conductor of an orchestra of 500 who missed the piccolo and waited for it.

God is waiting for your voice to join in! Praise the Lord. Let all that have breath praise God.

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Needed: A Vision of God

Posted on 5/28/13 by On the road with Jesus.

When they opened their eyes, they saw only Jesus -Matthew 17:8 (CEV)

Jesus has just shocked his disciples by announcing his coming death. Then he called the inner circle: Peter, James and John up to a mountain where they have this amazing vision of God (Matthew 17:1-9).

It is an oft repeated pattern in the Bible. At critical times in the lives of leaders like Moses, Elijah, Jonah, Isaiah, Abraham, or Israel’s history God called someone apart—a burning bush, a mountain, by a brook, the belly of a whale. His word to Israel in that time of crisis as they wandered in the desert was, “Come up to the Lord,…Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel.” They saw God. It was and is always the difference maker.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s when we need preparation for action/ministry or whether strength in the midst of our trials, When God wanted to take His people to new places, God has one answer. It is simply to give us a vision of God’s self. I don’t mean necessarily or even usually that God puts in an appearance. It may be a word, a sight, but it is nevertheless a revealing of Himself.

In the midst of your pain of cancer, the devastation of a child’s waywardness, loss of a job, end of a marriage or senseless violence, God is not about providing answers that explain or make sense but offering himself. Not what, but “whom,” I do believe.

We need a vision of God to keep our perspective but it means we need to find the “mountain” away from the noise, the busyness where we can meet Him.

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Me First! ?

Posted on 5/21/13 by On the road with Jesus.

Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake. I Peter 2:13.

Over the years I have received two criticisms which I consider to be two of the best compliments I ever got. One was that I talked “too much about Jesus.” I only hope that I have talked as much about Jesus as that suggests. The other was that I had “quit preaching and gone to meddling.” In this case, I believe that, in the best sense of the word, the Gospel is meddlesome. It has to do with where we live. Peter certainly thought so. This verse is the heading for a section (2:13-3:12) on a Christian’s relationships. It identifies a basic relationship principle: submit. (Do not read this as “submit to evil” or unhealthy domination. It is qualified by “for the Lord’s sake” and the other’s best interests.)

The title of a little book by Paul Tournier, names the fundamental human dilemma—To Resist or to Surrender. He says,

“Whether it is a farmer selling a cow at the fair or two theologians discussing doctrine, an adolescent who is trying to extract a privilege from his unwilling parents or diplomats who are negotiating war or peace, there are always two interests, two convictions, and in the last analysis, two wills which confront each other” (Tournier, To Resist Or To Surrender, 13).

The prevailing emphasis in our culture is on assertiveness and the Biblical text seems so naive when it makes submission the foundation stone of human relationships: others first, give vs receive, serve vs be served. Some sample Bible verses echo it:

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Eph 5:21)
Honor one another above yourselves. (Roms. 12:10)
In humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of your should look not only to your owns interests, but also to the interests of others. (Phil 2:3b-4)

Conventional thought says, “if you don’t watch out for yourself no one else will.” The Bible says, “yes—the Christian will.”

Since we live in a day, as someone has said, “The words of the Christian community have outrun its exemplary living,” we need to renew our commitment to this principle. (IB,113).

Filed under: character, Discipleship, Example, Life style, Love, The Journey | 2 Comments »

A Life Worthy of the Gospel

Posted on 5/15/13 by On the road with Jesus.

Conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.-Philippians 1:27

Dallas Willard died last week. Though I did not know him personally and never met him, I consider him to have been my mentor. His writings never failed to stir my heart and challenge my life. Two of his books, The Divine Conspiracy and Renovation of the Heart were especially significant to me. Just last year I led a Sunday School class study of The Divine Conspiracy.

In that book, he used the image of a bar code to illustrate a major problem among the Christian community. He said that a lot of people had the bar code that said “Christian” but whose life really was something different.

It is sad but the lifestyles of many people deny their labeled identity as Christian. Lifestyle is the result of character. It is the form or expression given to a character when lived out in a world. The dictionary defines “style” as a manner, a method, a way, a practice, a habit, as a characteristic behavior. It has to do with a pattern of life, not just isolated incidents, not just a particular choice or action but a pattern of choices and actions. Our jobs are involved, our leisure, how we spend our money, the food we eat, the goods we consume, the house we live in, how we raise our children. Everything about our lives suggests a certain style of life.

A classic example is found in the movie “Chariots of Fire.” the story of young men preparing for the 1924 Olympics. One is a Scottish missionary to China. His name is Eric Liddle. Liddle qualifies for the Olympics, but on the ship with the British Olympic team in route to Paris, he discovers that one of the races he is to run will take place on Sunday. He refuses to run. He is pressured from ever quarter to change his mind even to the point of bringing in the Prince of England to persuade him to run “for the honor of the country.”

Eric Liddle’s refusal to run was not just an isolated incident or sudden whim. It was a logical development from his pattern of life. It was in fact predictable.

Now the manner, the style of life has always been a major concern for Christians and it is clearly reflected in numerous New Testament passages. These are just a few samples:

-To the Corinthian Christians- “you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealously and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving like ordinary men?”
– In Ephesians Paul raises the question in terms of conduct, talk, and labor.
-The book of Phillipians says, “I hope…Christ can be honored in my body. (1:20).
“As Christians we are to be “Lights in the world” (2:15).
-We read about some who by their conduct are “enemies of the cross of Christ.”
-Those at Colosse are asked, “Why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? (Col.2:20)
-“Give up living like pagans” (Eph.)
-There are those who profess to know God “but deny him by their deeds(Eph. 1:16)
-In Titus we read that we ought to live so that in “everything you may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior” (2:10).

From the beginning, there was never any doubt that those Christians were different. Their style of living set them apart from the rest of the world. But we are called not only to lives that are different, also life worthy of the gospel of Christ..

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