Monday, September 4, 2017

Half Hearted, Half Blessed

This was originally written for the September Newsletter of the Evangelical Free Church of Oakland

A friend and pastoral mentor of mine told me, that when someone came in for counseling, he asked these three questions:
1. Do you have a problem? In other words, before you can be helped you have to acknowledge that there is something wrong.
2. Do you want my help? People sometimes know they have a problem, but do not really trust the person they are asking for help. This creates a barrier because they will not trust the person when they make a recommendation. 
3. Are you willing to do anything and everything you need to do to get help? I think most people probably really stumble on this question, and this is where I want to spend my time in this article. They want help because where they are is painful, but they also fear change, because they know it will be painful as well.

In Luke 9:57-62, Jesus deals with three objections from people who claim they want to follow him, but have just one thing that is holding them back. Jesus drives home the point that anything or any barrier that keeps you from following him right now, completely, means that you are not really ready to follow Him at all. He wants our complete loyalty. Many of us genuinely desire to follow Him with our whole hearts, but we do not understand what that will mean until we get challenged or we begin to suffer. The call to follow Jesus takes on a new dimension when He asks us to follow Him into unknown or painful territory.

Frequently, in my years of ministry, I have had people come and talk to me about serious problems in their lives. My goal is help them find joy and peace in the Lord. In that process then, I ask them if they are willing to follow Jesus and obey Him. Of course most of us readily say yes, and in that moment we mean it. On the other hand, when we start to get down to specific life changes, it gets much harder. Suddenly, when the idea of taking up our cross daily is not just a phrase about the necklace we wear, but about obedience that requires real change and real challenge, then it is much harder to say yes to Jesus.

For example, a husband will come and tell me he wants a better marriage, but his wife does not respect him, so he cannot treat her lovingly. In the course of the conversation it will become clear that his wife has become an idol to him, and he is looking to her opinion for his identity instead of who he is in Christ. The solution is the begin to trust that Jesus loves him and gives him purpose. From this solid foundation of identity in Christ, he can begin to love his wife unconditionally even if she does not respect him.

Now the rubber meets the road when he is challenged to act lovingly toward her even when she does not treat him well in return. He will often not be willing to change, because he is waiting for her to change, which shows that he has not trusted Jesus with his full identity yet. Often, when I talk to the wife, the same pattern will emerge. She is waiting for him to love her well before she can act lovingly and respectfully. Even though both are Christ followers, they do not yet understand how following Christ impacts how they should love their spouse unconditionally. The fruit of our trust in Jesus shows up in our relationship with other people.

I know this situation intimately because I have seen this pattern repeatedly in all kinds of situations where the question is not what does Jesus want me to do, but rather, am I willing to obey what I know Jesus wants me to do? Frankly, the place I see it the most is in myself!

When we fail to obey, we do not get the full blessing of God. We want to obey, and we often obey up to a point, but when real change is required or God challenges us to step out in faith in a new area, we back away from Him. When we back away from Jesus, then we also back away from the full abundant life that he promised in John 10:10. He wants us to have peace, joy, hope, and faith which lead to loving relationships. If we are unwilling to obey when it is hard, we will miss out on the changes in us that can bring us those blessings, and that allow us to experience the abundant life no matter what the circumstances.

My challenge for you today is to ask God where He is leading and commit to follow Him no matter what even it seems hard In that process you will learn that God is faithful and will give you the strength to obey Him. He promises to bless you, but you have to be willing to follow Him with your whole heart to experience all that He can give you.

Friday, September 1, 2017

One Way

This article was originally written for the Oakland Independent July 12, 2017.

I like to explore and one of the ways that I do that is by finding different ways to drive from here to there. I often drive back roads when coming home from some meeting in Wayne, Norfolk, Omaha, or Fremont. Eventually with the help of Google maps and my compass, I do make it home, but it often involves lots of twists and turn and sometimes even backtracking. One thing is clear though, I have to keep on roads that lead in the direction Oakland. If I am leaving Norfolk, I cannot start heading west and keep heading west and ever expect to get home. When looking at a map there may be several ways to get from here to there, but anyone who has ridden with a directionally challenged driver knows you cannot just go where ever you want and expect to get to your destination.

Jesus makes the extraordinary claim about spiritual direction, that he is "the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through him" (John 14:6). He is claiming that there is only one way to get to God and that is through himself. This exclusive claim sounds harsh in the light of our modern and tolerant society, but I am convinced that Jesus is who he claimed to be and that his work provides the only way to get to God. Like the belief in a Trinitarian God who created everything else, the belief in the uniqueness of Jesus set Christians apart from those who don't believe in him.

Now when I say that Christians believe these things, I don't mean that we simply have a faith that they are true in spite of the facts or even though we don't have evidence. This is not the type of faith that is described in the Bible. We believe these things because we believe the best evidence points us in this direction.

I frequently tell our church that Jesus was a real man, who really lived, really died, and really rose again. The Bible is not just a book of fairy tales like a Disney movie, but rather a record of real historical events. Jesus is the best man who ever lived and in fact the best man who is still living! Furthermore, besides being just a man, the Bible makes it clear that Jesus is also God. So we, Christians believe that Jesus is both fully God and fully man.

He came and lived a perfect life, a life unlike any other before or since, and he came to live as a man for the expressed purpose of reconciling the relationship between God and man. All worldviews recognize the imperfections in the world, and the solution in most of them, religious and secular, is to somehow work yourself toward heaven and perfection. Jesus is unique in that he represents God coming to us and bridging the gap because we can never earn our way to heaven. What he offers is a free gift of salvation and life with him forever. His resurrection is also unique in history and proves that we can trust what he says about salvation.

Who Jesus is and what he has done, makes him the one way to get to God. Maybe though you think I am wrong and you do not believe any of these "wild" claims about Jesus that traditional Christians believe. Well, I cannot make you believe anything, but I would love to have a dialogue about it. Call me, write me, or write the paper. Start a conversation and tell me why you believe what you believe, and I will show you why I believe in Jesus. Let's talk and learn about each other.