Tag: Jesus (Page 6 of 22)

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Here’s Why You May Not Be A Follower Of Jesus

FollowerWithin Christianity, there has been a pervading idea that all you have to do to be a follower of Jesus is to say a prayer of salvation. In most churches we act like all it takes to be a Christian is a quick prayer, spurred by an emotion-driven, sermon. I wish it were that easy. Unfortunately, I do not believe this to be true. I’m not talking specifically about salvation. The Bible clearly says, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” I don’t think it matters whether that takes the form of a prayer on Sunday morning or a private declaration in a moment of desperation, saved is saved. However, saved does not automatically equal follower.

In the U.S., we have made the “salvation prayer” the primary focus, when it is instead a part of the entire Gospel. If Jesus’s objective was, “Go and get people saved,” we would do well by eliciting the emotional confession on Sunday mornings. However, the command is, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” We have missed the fullness of the command – it requires more than prayer.

So, what does this discussion have to do with The Whole Man? Everything. The purpose of this blog is to focus on the theological truth that Jesus is the only way to God, and on that way, He heals us and makes us whole. If the prayer is our beginning, what does following Jesus look like?

Deciding to Follow

To follow requires action. Following Jesus is based on the decision to go where He goes. We see this in the lives of each of the disciples. Jesus said follow Him and, without a confession of who He was, the disciples followed. It would not be until later when they would confess to who they believed Jesus to be. It is conceivable that a significant amount of time occurred between Peter’s invitation to follow Jesus in Matthew 4, and his confession of Jesus as the Christ in Matthew 16. Because Peter did not confess Jesus in Matthew 4, the time between his decision to follow, and his confession is not pointless. In fact, I would argue that time made his declaration more profound and impactful. Our decision to follow Jesus does not require a prayer. I’ve known a number of people who decided to follow Him and would later confess, “You are the Christ, to whom shall I go. For you have the words of eternal life.” Every time I have seen this, it is more beautiful than the last.

Committing to and Allowing Renewal

Making the decision to follow Jesus requires action. The commitment to follow Jesus requires the intentional “putting off” of your “old” self. This is more difficult than a prayer. This is the intentional decision to abandon certain, sometimes all, things that are present in your life. I’m not talking about smoking and cursing, but instead weightier behaviors that separate you from God, like hatred, anger, and drunkenness. We are required to surrender. We surrender our will to God and allow the Holy Spirit to renew our minds. This happens by taking in God’s word and through worship. We are then able to put on our “new” self, which is the reflection of Christ.

Obeying His Commands

Jesus said, “If you love me, obey my commandments.” Those commands include The Golden Rule, the Greatest Commandment, and the New Command. Jesus said He did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law. He told us that The Golden Rule is the Law and the Prophets. He was saying the entirety of the Law revolved around treating others like we want to be treated. Then He said that we accomplish this through loving God and loving others. Without love, we are not capable of fulfilling The Golden Rule. The decision to follow Jesus involves the decision to allow the Holy Spirit to cultivate a Christ-like love in you, for God and for others.

Jesus then gave His disciples the New Command to love each other and said that it would be the evidence of them belonging to Him. When we gather together and allow the Holy Spirit to generate unity and love between us, we are better equipped to obey other commands. It becomes more evident Whom we follow.

Following Jesus is not only a prayer. It begins with a decision. It is accentuated with the declaration of the belief we carry in our heart for who He is. It is not “action over words,” it is words in action.

Does God Ever Forsake Us?

abandoned

A few weeks ago I was talking with a friend and he was lamenting about how he feels distant from God. He confessed, “I know the Bible says God will never leave or forsake us, but He departed from Israel a number of times. He even forsook Jesus on the Cross.”

Whoa, there is a lot to consider in that statement. There are many reasons that we may feel that way. Undoubtedly, my friend is not the only one that has considered this.

I have also felt this. There was a time that I was convinced that God had abandoned me. In 2008, shortly after moving to Wyoming, my now ex-wife told me she wanted a divorce.

Her decision came out of nowhere. She wasted no time in leaving. I was devastated, angry and hurt. I could not understand why God “let” this happen. I did not feel I deserved this. I believed I was a good Christian. I was in church more than the average attender. In that moment I felt forsaken. My family was not nearby and I did not have close friends. God never seemed further away than He did during that time in my life.

However, God is merciful. In His Grace He quickly made Himself visible through different events and by bringing specific people into my life. It was not long before I was able to see I did not feel the distance because He left me, but because I had turned my back on Him.

I realized I had not wanted God involved in the selfish and hurtful decisions I was making in my life and marriage. It was easier to turn and pretend that God was not there. In hindsight, I am able to see how He pursued me.

I want to share some of what I have learned regarding God’s promise to not forsake us.

Free Will, Not Forsaken

Over the centuries a popular debate in the church has been the doctrine of free will. To oversimplify it, one side of the argument is that we get to choose everything we do, including whether we choose God. The other side of the debate suggests that we are predestined in our decision to follow God, which eliminates much of our free will. I’m not going to go any deeper with this topic at this time, but if you are interested, Robin Schumacher wrote a great article for The Christian Post on free will.

I would suggest that believing God has forsaken us, in any circumstance, is a poor indicator for whether He actually has. It is more an indicator of what we have chosen. Schumacher makes this point, “Our desires and our nature/character determine our choices, but we are never forced to act contrary to that nature/character so in that respect, we freely express ourselves through the choices we make.”

In that context, when I believed God had abandoned me, I was feeling the reality of the distance from Him which I had created. God was still present and actively pursuing me. I was the one making choices that put distance between us.

Schumacher continues by saying, “But where God is concerned, our sinful desire freely rejects God until He chooses to regenerate the dead, sinful nature in us and draw us to Himself. Once that happens, and we are set free from sin’s control, we are truly free indeed!”

To that end, the grief and frustration that I felt because of that distance was because God, in His gracious and merciful pursuit of me, was regenerating my dead, sinful nature and drawing me to Himself.

But what about the Christian who is already actively following Christ? What about when she or he feels forsaken? My belief is those moments are a reflection and result of our desire and nature to be drawn to the world.

Any feeling of being forsaken is the pain of distance, from God, that we create when we allow our desires and nature to move us toward the world and away from God. That feeling is a result of our soul longing for closeness to God and is the premise of God’s promise to “Draw near to [Him], and He will draw near to you.”

Forsaken to Keep His Promise

If it’s true that God never leaves us, and any distance we feel is a byproduct of the choices we make, why is it that Jesus was forsaken by God while He was on the Cross? It was so God could keep his promise.

The Cross of Jesus accomplished everything we needed with regard to our total reconciliation and redemption. Isaiah 53 tells us that all of our shortcomings and brokenness are made whole in the work Jesus did on the Cross. It is in the trial, whipping, crucifixion, death that Jesus faced and defeated all the things that would ever affect us. It is in His work that we are healed, acknowledged, forgiven, made new, made righteous, receive justice and are reconciled to the heart of God. But it is also in that work that the ability to never again be separated from God, should we seek after and follow Him, was granted to us.

Prior to His death on the Cross, Jesus “cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”)” Jesus was reciting Psalms 22, and in doing so confirmed that God forsook Him at that moment. Why? Biblical scholars have much to say about that and we could dive deep into their commentaries. However, let’s consider this as simply as possible, because I believe the Gospel, in and of itself, is simple.

It is because He took our place. In the same way in which He took our place in paying for our sin, so we would not have to pay, He accepted separation from God so we would not have to experience that.

Jesus was forsaken by God, while on the Cross, so that He could keep the promise He made in Matthew 28:20b, that He is “with you always, to the end of the age.” In Hebrews 13:5 God promises “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Jesus forsaken by God allows that promise to stand for all eternity.

God never leaves us. Jesus experienced this so we would never again know the infinite dread of being separated from our Father. When we begin to feel abandoned, take heart in knowing that it is your soul responding to the wooing of God to draw near to Him.

So gather with other Believers. Seek God together through prayer and scripture. Hide in your prayer closet and sit silent before Him. But know that He will never leave or forsake you.

The Lie in “Practice Makes Perfect”

practice makes perfect

photo used from realfreewebsite.com

“Practice makes perfect,” right? We grow up being fed this idiom as the advice that will ensure our success. We’re told that no matter the skill, we are able to master it by simply repeating it over and over. We have taken this simple motivational saying and turned it into a life motto. But deep down we struggle with believing it is true. If it were true, then the American Idol audition episodes would not be as funny to watch. The truth is we know that we can’t be perfect, at anything, ever. But unfortunately so many of us still buy into this saying as an undisputable truth.

There’s a difference in wanting to do something well and needing to be perfect at it. One motivates you to continue to work hard and allows you to enjoy progress and success, even in the moments of failure. The other drives you to overreach in the area of practice, which often steals the joy of doing, creates burnout and causes feelings of never being “good enough.” When times of failure come; because they always do, even for professionals, or you meet the person that is better than you, it’s crushing. That often leads to more striving and more burnout or simply just quitting. Either way the potential for a defeated heart becomes greater and greater.

The Bible Doesn’t Necessarily Help

Unfortunately we’ve moved away from simply seeking proficiency toward seeking perfection. But, as previously mentioned, we know deep down that perfection isn’t attainable. Again unfortunately that doesn’t stop us. Sometimes it can seem like even scripture adds to this problem. Scripture like Matthew 5:48 only seems to feed our need for perfection. In that scripture Jesus actually says, “You therefore must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” There it is, be perfect.

We automatically assume that He’s telling us to be perfect in all things, rightly conclude that it is not possible while on earth and often either ignore it and continue on our Christian way, or discount Christianity (or at least the Bible) as a whole. But, as with much of scripture it isn’t that simple and when we take a single verse out of context, we do more damage than good.

Biblical teachers have shared a couple different thoughts on what Jesus is talking about here. He says this while giving a long sermon (called the Sermon on the Mount). During that sermon Jesus elevates much of the previous laws that the Jews had been trying to live by. He equates hate with murder, lust with adultery and tells them that it is not enough to not wish their enemies ill will, but instead they must actually love them. Then, right in the middle of it, He says to be perfect.

I’ve heard it suggested that He is telling us to be perfect in our intent to follow the law as He explains it. The idea is, as humans, we are incapable of being perfect in action, but our intent can be perfect. It is basically us repeating Paul’s cry that, “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” I do believe that this is true. As we allow the Holy Spirit to sanctify and mold us into the likeness of Jesus, our intent to follow Jesus’ commands can be made perfect even though our ability may lack. But I’m not sure that’s what Jesus was talking about here.

Pursuit, not Perfection

Another way I’ve heard it interpreted is in the immediate context of what Jesus was talking about, specifically loving your enemy. The Greek word that Jesus used is different from other occasions when He said “perfect.” On this occasion the word means something closer to “mature.” If Jesus was saying to be perfect in the context of loving your enemy, then that changes the perspective on perfection. If this is true, Jesus is telling us to love perfectly; as the Father loves, so shall we. While that in and of it self is a hard task, if there is anything we ought to be practicing to perfection it is the ability to love. Jesus spends the few verses before v. 48 talking about how easy it is to love you friend, but the real defining factor of His follower is the ability to love their enemy. That is another blog for another time, but the good news in this is that He isn’t telling us that we need be perfect in all things.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive toward perfection. If we are pursuing Jesus we are moving toward perfection, but our goal is not perfection, it is Jesus; He is the prize, perfection is not. The best part is when Jesus talks about us being made perfect, as in whole and complete, He doesn’t say it to us, but instead during a prayer, He asks God that we, as a church, “may become perfectly one.” God never puts the onus on us to be perfect.

Practice for Pursuit

The truth is that we are not perfect and we can’t be on this side of eternity. Our flesh will continually war against our desire to do the will of God. We should strive to be perfect in the way that we love others. That should be the one area that we hold onto the idea that practice makes perfect. But, no matter how much we practice we won’t be perfect in every way it means to follow Jesus. We are going to fail. We are going to sin and fall short. We are going to be harsh with our children, upset our spouses, anger a friend, but God’s grace is sufficient for our imperfections. If He has that much grace for us, shouldn’t we have the same for each other and even for ourselves? It is in Him that we have the strength to keep on. Instead of holding onto “practice makes perfect” we would do better to view it as “practice breeds pursuit.” That means that as we repeat the things that Jesus modeled for us a desire is produced to pursue Him more.

Practice does not always make perfect, but it does bring us closer to the One who is.

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