Category: Approach God (Page 17 of 18)

2 Things Your Love Can Do Without

March 27, 2014 / / 2 Comments

loved people

Love is a dangerous and strange thing. Love will dismantle you in a moment and restore every part of you in that same moment.

Throughout history love has been attached to both epic tragedy and extravagant joy.  In the name of love we are willing to do things that we never dreamed. For instance, I love my wife so much I willingly endure temperatures in our home that are on par with the outer boundaries of hell because she’s cold… even in the summer. What can I say, love does. Love is the great influencer. As dangerous and strange as love is, it is also the safest and most familiar place you can reside. We’re built for love, to give and receive it.

Being that God is love and He desires to have us as His beloved, it follows that we are created to receive that love and extend it to others.  Thankfully many Christians know this to be their call (or at least they understand the basis of it). I’m beginning to hear people all over the church saying that we’re called to love others, and that’s a great thing. What I’m worried about is the fact that I hear a lot of other stuff attached to it.

One of the most common things that church people say is, “I hate the sin, but I love the sinner.”  My response to that, after fighting back the urge to laugh and cry at the same time, is always, “No you don’t.”  Please understand, I’m not laughing at the person; I know they’re well intentioned when they say it, because I was when I said it.  I’m laughing at the notion that hate and love can exist in the same sentence.  “Hate the sin, but love the sinner” is found NOWHERE in the bible.  The idea for that saying isn’t even in the Bible. It wasn’t even part of Jesus’ teachings in any way.  Jesus did say “Love God and love others” and He did also talk about dealing with “the speck” (or sin) in your brothers eye, but not for the purpose that we use them. When we use that scripture to call out someone else’s sin we disregards the fact that Jesus first said deal with the plank (in other words, huge board.  I mean, the guy was a carpenter, so I’m sure He was pretty solid on what a plank of wood looked like) in your own eye.  The point was, deal with the huge amounts of sin in your own life, before you ever deal with the small sin in your BROTHER’S life. The key to that whole passage of scripture is brother. Jesus was talking about dealing with the sin of other believers, not people outside of His followers. Yet, sadly, we use that type of scripture to justify calling out the sin of people that don’t even believe they should be following Jesus.  Then we wonder why they won’t go to church.  Near as I remember, I’ve never seen any one come to Jesus when a Christian said to them, “Jesus really hates your sin, but He loves you, so you should follow Him.”

Here’s the truth, you cannot truly love someone when you’re focused on what you hate about them and what they’re doing wrong. When it comes to God, hate never precedes love.  It just cannot. Love stands alone and conquers hate. This is the way it has to be, love cannot have anything to do with hate, except to crush it.

With that said, if we as The Church, really want to love others as we are commanded to (Mark 12:31), here are the two things that we need to eliminate from our love in order to make it a real, Jesus-level love.

1.  Exception

all-welcome-except-you_mge6r_24702Our love isn’t reserved for a particular group of people.  There is no “better than” group in the gospel.  The truth is that EVERYONE is just as undeserving of your love as you are of God’s, yet God gives it anyway.  As Jesus walked around during the three years of His ministry, He reserved His love for no one in particular, but gave it freely to anyone that would accept it. Did everyone accept it? No, not then and not now. Did He stop offering His love because people rejected it?  Nope. He continued to offer love to everyone from the prostitute and tax collector, to the Samaritan woman (which by the way was a HUGE no-no, because Jews considered Samaritans to be lower than dogs), to the Roman officer, and to the Pharisee (remember Nicodemus and the Pharisee that buried Him).  No one was excepted from the offer of love.

For us as His followers, our offer of love should not exclude anyone.  We need to understand that love is not acceptance of behavior, but acceptance of the person. I know any good Christian will nod their head at this and say “Amen”.  How could you possibly say you follow Jesus and disagree with any part of that idea? But, many will go about their day and still hold back their love, without consciously admitting it, never engaging that person who is living a life they disagree with and they’ll do it under the guise of, “If I’m part of their life then that shows I accept what they’re doing.”  The problem with that way of thinking is that you completely miss the point of actually loving so
meone. We often get hung up on evangelizing AT people to convince them to change their life, but what if we invested time into a relationship with them and let Jesus build a genuine love for them inside our heart?  What happens then? What happens is that we end up actually caring for the person and getting to tell them all about our Lord in the safety and familiarity of love.

2.  Expectation

open-hand This one is a little more complicated. It took a long time for me to accept this idea as true.  It’s difficult to not expect people to “get saved” when we’re doing church. The going in on this is that we’re going to present the Gospel message in a clear way and the Holy Spirit will compel people to surrender to Jesus.  In general there is nothing wrong with this idea.  We should have an expectation that God will move. He tells us He will, so we should expect it.  But, when we attach expectation to our love, that’s when things get hairy.  As far as Sunday morning church goes, what if instead of expecting people to “get saved” we expected the Holy Spirit to show up for our celebration (already in progress) and equip us for the work in the week ahead?  What if we then went out into the week and into our communities, ready to love people without an expectation for anything except people getting to experience the love of Christ through His followers?  What would church look like then?

I know the argument might be that Jesus expected things from people, i.e. He told the prostitute to “Go and sin no more.” Yes He did direct her to stop sinning and no doubt He expected her to or else He wouldn’t had said it, but that expectation isn’t what I’m talking about.  Again, the idea of “without expectation” does not excuse Jesus’ followers from adhering to the standard of living He sets for us.  After we commit to following Him, He has an expectation for how we should live, but His love is still offered regardless of whether we live that way or not.  His love is a free love, always without expectation.  Don’t believe me?  There are a lot of stories that could illustrate this point, but just consider the 10 lepers that Jesus healed. Jesus healed all 10 lepers and that was His practical act of love.  After healing all of them, only one came back to thank Him.  The other nine failing to return to show thanks, didn’t cause Jesus to remove the healing, again that was His free, practical act of love (it was offered without expectation), but the one that returned was healed and had his sins forgiven.  Though that single leper benefited from His belief and experienced complete redemption, the other nine still benefited from Jesus’ grace and experienced love. They received an un-expectant love.

We’re not to expect when we love. That idea goes the way of a selfless love.  It shouts Jesus’ command to “Love God and love others” and says, “I love you regardless of who you are and how you respond to it.”  You don’t save someone by telling them how bad they are; you do it by telling them how good Jesus is.  Really, you save someone by introducing them to the only one that can and loving them without exception and expectation does that.

What else can our love do without, or with more of?

4 Essential Elements of Gospel-Centered Community (Pt. 2)

March 25, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Missional Community

Here it is, part 2.

In the last post (HERE), I talked about the first two essential elements to genuine Gospel-centered community.  I said that fellowship and seeking God provide the foundation for genuineness and authenticity in Gospel-centered community.  Without the first two as the foundation community collapses under the heavy weight of these next two elements.

What I didn’t say it in the last post, but you may have heard me say in the past if you’ve talked with me about this, is that I don’t think this is the only way to do church, just the way that God has called me (and it appears a lot of other people recently) to do it. I will say this, however, every model of church ought to have, at its core, some type of genuine Christocentric community that contains these elements.  You don’t need to call them the same things (I’ve been pretty clear that it doesn’t matter what words you use; use friendship, pursuit, responsibility and service), but the fact remains that a community centered on Christ IS and must be the core of Christianity.  Churches that dismiss this core, either willfully or out of negligence, will eventually become nothing more than a business. And, just so it’s clear, the 4 elements I’m writing about aren’t my idea; they come from Acts 2:42-47.

So, without further ado, here are the third and fourth elements essential for genuine Gospel-centered community.

3. Accountability

Accountability - 5Put simply, accountability means, “being responsible for… or to something or someone.”  This word, if any are, is typically a pretty foul and off-putting word in today’s church.  This is especially true in the American church where so many people leave to start there own thing, typically under the guise of “seeking God deeper than their church offers”, but in reality are simply trying to escape some sort of accountability. In genuine community we are responsible for or to three things: others in the community, the purpose of the community and the Word.  Just like fellowship, accountability has been dismissed as a necessary idea because it typically draws thoughts of sitting around on a Tuesday night with a group of guys or girls (most of whom you don’t know outside of Tuesday) and telling them your “dirty little secrets”.  Nowadays it can also look like sitting at Starbucks and telling one of your “bros” what you’re “struggling” with.  Often there is little, if any, honesty in what is shared, so it’s really only a manufactured and counterfeit form of transparency.  Typically meant to give the guise of community, but only so far as the people don’t have to actually commit to it.

Accountability in community is far deeper than either of those descriptions.  This part of community isn’t about airing your “dirty laundry”. Although it does involve transparency and vulnerability with one, or a few, other person(s) in your community.  Those other people ate there so you can honestly share those things that actually burden you and that you really do struggle with.  Accountability allows you to unload those burdens on to others in you community that will lovingly accept them and walk through the difficulty of those burdens with you so that you can succeed in being following Jesus. It also allows them to do the same with you.  Most times carrying someone else’s burden is far easier than carrying your own.  In community you’re responsible for others and you become other’s responsibility.  The second part is that you’re responsible for and to the purpose of the community. What has God called your community to accomplish?  What has God called you to accomplish in that community?   Do you contribute to that purpose?  Are you obedient to what the Holy Spirit directs you to do inside (and outside) of your community?  Accountability to God’s purpose for the community is what helps draw it together, in unity, around one shared purpose.  It helps us to be one body with one hope because we are called to one Lord. (Eph 4:1-6) The last area of accountability, and the most important, is responsibility for and to the Word of God (both in print and incarnate or the Bible and Jesus).  You’re responsible for the correct handling, as a community and individual, of the Holy Scriptures.  You’re also responsible to Jesus and the direction of the Holy Spirit and for the correct presentation of Jesus, because we are His ambassadors. (2 Cor 5:20)  His introduction to to the lost is dependent of your accountability (or responsibility) to His Word (i.e. “Be my witness to the world“).

4. Sacrifice

SacrificeThis last area of community is so vital and so difficult. This last area is what separates a bible study from a Gospel-centered community that’s on mission for Jesus. This last element, though the simplest idea, is far from the easiest.  This involves giving yourself up.  It involves being “poured out” for the sake of others, to quote the Apostle Paul. It requires your time, money, car, emotions, intelligence, dedication, tears, laughter, house, agenda, and the list goes on.  This element says that you and your community will give for Jesus, each other, and your purpose, no matter the cost. This element is where the widows are cared for, the orphans are loved, the hungry are fed, the thirsty are given a drink, the naked are clothed and the sick and imprisoned are visited. This is where we focus our efforts to seek out the lost and introduce them into fellowship with a community that will love them and a Messiah that will lovingly save them. This is where we put all the other stuff we talk about into action.  This is the deeds part of our faith.  This is the perfecting of our faith that the author of the book of Hebrews spoke of. This is the true religion that Jesus described. Without this element, the other three are useless, because they don’t change anything.

That’s it; four easy steps to genuine Gospel-centered community.  I’m just kidding; it isn’t easy.  This is the most difficult thing you’ll ever do and it will take you the rest of your life. BUT, it will connect you to a group of people that will love you like you’ve never been loved before and to a God that will love you more than that.  In the times that I’ve lived in community like this, I got to see Jesus in a way that I never had before.  To be honest, it ruined me, in the most glorious of ways, for anything less. Once you’ve experienced fullness, nothing else will do.

So go on, go forth, love without exception or expectation and experience the fullness that Jesus desires us to have.

What would you add to the four?

 

4 Essential Elements of Gospel-Centered Community (Pt. 1)

March 23, 2014 / / 1 Comment

Missional Community

In a couple months I’ll be retiring from the US Air Force.  It’s been almost 20 years (they offered early retirement and I jumped on it) and now I finally get to grow the beard that I’ve long dreamed about.  As I draw close a number of people have asked me what I plan to do.  Professionally I’ll probably take some desk job doing Human Resource Management stuff, but that’s only transitional and I plan on being able to leave that in the next five years and write full time.  There are actually a lot of things I want to do, but only one that has been gnawing at my heart and soul for the past four-ish years.  I’ve blogged about it before (HERE), but with my impending departure from the USAF and the possibility of getting to see this thing come to pass and becoming ever more real, I figured I’d put it in writing again (it’s as much for me as it is for you).

Toward the end of 2009 God started forming, in my heart and in the group I was serving with in ministry, this idea of what church could be.  The idea revolves around an All Volunteer Ministry (AVM).  There is a lot that goes in to AVM; too much to address here and I’d love to share it with you if you’re interested, but the basis for which it’s built is this idea of Gospel-centered Community.  I know this term is quickly becoming a Christian buzzword, but it doesn’t take away any credibility from it, on the contrary, it makes it a movement.  For me this idea falls somewhere between institutional church and organic church.  I call it “structured organic”.  The basis for Gospel-centered Community contains four elements, each of which is essential in it’s own right.  For the sake of length, I separated this into two posts.  In this first post I’ll address the first two and in the second post, because I’m super predictable, I’ll address the other two.

Here are the first 2 elements essential to ensuring genuine Gospel-centered community.

1.  Fellowship

fellowshipThe word “fellowship”, like many other Christian terms, has been high jacked by the ultra-religious and has sadly been abandoned on the “Island of Misfit Christian terms.”  Because of it’s over use, people tend to either shudder at its use or make fun of it (check out this VIDEO, it’s hilarious… and kind of true).  But, just because Christianity has started looking for other words to explain gathering together to enjoy each others’ company, doesn’t make fellowship any less important.  Fellowship is so important to Gospel-centered community.  Fellowship is about friendship and camaraderie.  It’s about enjoying the company of others.  And it’s an all-inclusive thing and the “company of others” includes both believers and unbelievers.  So, I don’t care what you call it; call it “Youtube Video Night”, call it “Canaan 2014 Water to Wine Night” (that one’s free), call it a party; just get together, spend time and enjoy each other.  Also, this is and should be a reflection of how we fellowship with Jesus.  Fellowship is how relationships start, even with Jesus.

2.  Seeking God

SeekingAs a community is drawn together through fellowship, there will begin to be a desire for God to be a part of that community.  God is always present where two or three of His own are gathered and will always make Himself known.  This part of Gospel-centered Community involves seeking God in three specific ways.  First, the community seeks knowledge of God.  Seeking knowledge as a community is done through the gathered studying His Word (typically in the form of a bible study, sermonettes, etc.).  Second, the community seeks the presence of God.  Fellowship and the gaining of knowledge of who God is should eventually create a desire to be in actual community with Him.  We seek His presence through private and corporate worship and prayer.  Once we experience the presence of God, He begins to reveal His purpose, both for the individual and the group.  Call it your community’s calling or mission or vision, it doesn’t matter; what does matter is how awesome it is to come together around His shared purpose.  Seeking these things of God is an awesome journey and when it’s really from God, it brings unity.

So, that’s the first two.  I don’t want to make it sound like any particular one of the four elements is more important than any other, because they’re all important for different purposes.  But, if you desire authenticity in your community and if you desire genuine gospel-centeredness, then these two elements are the foundation for this whole thing.  Without these two the other two become mundane, forced and eventually end in failure.

What are some things you’ve seen work in your community for fellowship and seeking God together?

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