Tag: obedience

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Christian Living

Elimination: The Skill of Eliminating Distractions is Important

The Skill of Elimination – removing the things from your life that are negatively affecting your spiritual growth.

(And again, Facebook automation now only provides an excerpt, and so those FBers who want the full article will have to follow the link to my website. The best alternative would be to sign up for the email which sends the full article directly to your inbox. You can do that by clicking here.

photo of erasers to remind us use the skill of elimination
What Do You Need To Erase From Your Life?

Now back to the skill of elimination.

Continuing with the idea of the last few posts on discipleship, I want to remind you that Discipleship & Disciple-Making are key commands of Jesus.

You know that the 2 Greatest Commandments are:
    1. Love God with all you have, and
    2. Love others as yourself.

The way we are to accomplish these 2 commands is through obedience to the Great Commission, which Jesus stated as: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.”

Therefore, if this is Jesus’ Commission to us, then we each need to have an answer for how we are obeying it. We should be able to answer these two questions:
    Who is discipling me? and
    Who am I discipling?

Who is intentionally helping you to grow in love and obedience to Jesus?
Who are you intentionally helping to do the same?

In Robby Gallaty’s book, Rediscovering Discipleship, he shares a quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

Gallaty goes on to say that this kind of evaluation is very difficult because it removes what you want and reveals what God wants. And we know that God wants us to be discipled and be discipling others. Therefore, this means that some of us may need to think seriously about eliminating some activities in our lives so that we can experience the very best that Jesus wants for us.

We need to develop the skill of elimination and continually ask ourselves:
What do I need to eliminate from my life to be obedient to Jesus in the area of being discipled and being a disciple-maker?

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Categories
Christian Living

Being Obedient Means Always Placing Your Yes on the Altar

What does it look like to be obedient to God at all times?
What would it look like to always place your “yes” upon His altar?

Isaiah tells us that he saw a most spectacular vision of God, and just the vision of God on His throne with the end of His robe filling up the temple had Isaiah falling down on his face and saying: “God, I will do whatever you ask of me.”

There are great examples of those who have heard God’s call and simply answered “Whatever you ask God.” But there are other examples we find in the Bible as well:

We see Moses say something along the lines of: “God, I have a bunch of excuses for You, but even if you can give me some great reasons as to why those excuses aren’t valid, please don’t ask me to do it. Find someone else. I don’t care if I’m the perfect person. I don’t care. Just don’t ask me.” Have you ever felt like that?

We find Jonah’s attitude to be: “God has asked me to do something. I ain’t gonna. I’m skipping town. I’m going to go the exact opposite way that God told me to go.” Have you ever been that disobedient? Jonah eventually goes and is obedient (after being vomited out on the shore covered with the stomach contents of some great fish), but he obeys with anger and he is upset over the outcome of God’s kindness to people he doesn’t like.

Who are you going to be like when God calls you? Awestruck Isaiah? Willing Joseph or Mary (see my earlier post by clicking here? Reluctant Moses? Rebellious Jonah?

God still has the same call to each of us: “Who will go for Us, and whom shall I send?”

I’m not talking about overseas missions. I’m not talking about going to a nation like Nineveh nor preaching repentance to an unreached people group in the wilds of the jungle. I’m not talking about going to a king like Pharaoh and trying to talk to heads of state about Jesus. Those things all scare us. Certainly, if that is what God calls you to do, then I hope you will answer that call, knowing that He will give you the ability to be obedient. But what I am talking about is that the call on your life is to be a missionary all the time to the people right around you.

You are to be on mission for God all the time. Wherever you are going to work today – as an employer, as an employee, as a student, as a retiree going to drink coffee with some friends – Wherever you have been placed by life’s circumstances, your choices, and God’s sovereign hand – you are to be on mission for Him.

You are to be the messenger of God for those that you are around. You are to say “Yes” to God every time he asks you to be obedient.

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Christian Living

Obedience to Jesus Can Be Tough

Obedience can be tough.
At times it will feel like climbing a mountain.
a narrow path leading up a mountain - symbolizing the difficulty of obedience to Jesus
What if your fiancée told you she was pregnant but that she hadn’t been sexually involved with anyone? You knew you hadn’t been sexually intimate with her, so how did this pregnancy happen if she hadn’t had sex with someone else? It would be tough to believe her, wouldn’t it? At least in today’s technological age, we might could discuss something such as in vitro fertilization, but that wasn’t available back in Joseph & Mary’s day.

Mary told Joseph that she was pregnant. He knew that he wasn’t the father because they were engaged and had not yet had sex. And so when Mary shared that she had remained faithful to him, but that she had become pregnant by the power of God, he could not believe it. He determined that she had concocted some false story, and he decided he would “break off the engagement” quietly.

Joseph could have cried out to the religious community and said, “This woman that I love, this woman that I have trusted, this woman that I pledged to marry has had sex with another man. Then she tried to tell me this preposterous story about what happened.” But he didn’t. Even though he didn’t believe her, he loved her and chose not to disparage her.

I believe Joseph was heart-broken. The woman he loved had cheated on him (she hadn’t, but that’s what it looked like to him) and then she probably cried her eyes out telling him that it was a supernatural pregnancy from God. But who could believe that? So Joseph just determined that his fiancée whom he loved was lying to him and would not come clean, so he decided, “I’ll just end this quietly.” And his breaking off their marriage certainly also broke Mary’s heart. Can you imagine how many tears both of them shed over how this was all taking place?

But then God sent an angel to Joseph to tell him that Mary had been completely truthful. Can you imagine the scene as Joseph ran back to Mary who is still crying tears over her upcoming divorce (because in those days the breaking of a “betrothal” required a divorce certificate). As he enters the room and sees her crying, he apologizes and says, “Mary, I believe you! God sent an angel to me. I’m sorry I ever doubted you. Please forgive me.” And then Mary’s tears of heartache were turned to tears of joy as the two of them embraced and prepared again for their upcoming marriage.

But then came more difficulty, because now Joseph would have to explain to others about what had occurred, because if he was anything like me, I would not want anyone to tarnish my wife’s reputation, especially when she was simply doing God’s will. Mary is going to “start showing” that she is pregnant by the great big bulge that baby Jesus is going to cause. It is obvious to everyone that Mary is pregnant before the wedding. And now Joseph and Mary are telling a story that they didn’t have sex, but that Mary is miraculously pregnant by the hand of God. Everyone is thinking – what an ingenious (and ridiculous) excuse.

God called Mary & Joseph to a difficult task. Mary, you are going to give birth to the Messiah, and Joseph you will raise Him as your son. And yet it will be difficult because people are going to call Mary a loose woman and call Jesus an illegitimate child (both were probably called much worse). Yet Mary and Joseph both chose to submit to God and follow through in difficult obedience all the same.

They had hearts that said: “Whatever you ask God, we will do. We are Your servants.”

God has not called you to such a difficult task. But he does expect you to be faithful to what He has commanded you to do. He does expect your obedience. You know something that He has impressed on your heart to do. Will you do it? Will you say, “Whatever you ask God. I am your servant”?

Categories
Christian Living

Becoming an Expert at Putting Others First

someone walking in dusty boots symbolizing us getting dirty at putting others firstIn my most recent post I indicated that we must get our hands “dirty” by working hard at this thing called discipleship – walking beside someone to help them grow in Christ-likeness. The reason we must do this is that:
     “The fundamental way that we are going to see Jesus save people across the globe is through discipleship…. the good old fashioned, life-on-life, person-to-person, dirty, messy process of teaching people to obey all that Jesus had commanded. Showing people with our words and our lives how to follow and magnify the Risen Savior” (Kevin Peck).

And if our calling is to make disciples who are obedient to Christ, then we must be models of obedience to Christ. Do you consider yourself a model in this area for others? You strive to be an expert in your field of business. You strive to be the most knowledgeable and capable person at what you are being paid to do. Yet the One who created you has called you to be an expert in discipleship and disciple-making. How well are you excelling in this area?

As disciples and disciple-makers, we must be willing to do God’s will even if it hurts. Putting others first – putting their interests above our own – is not something we are very good at. We think others should make us the center of the universe. But that is not the model that Jesus provided to us – this One who put my interests ahead of His own and left Heaven to come serve me. If He did that for me, then why do I have such a hard time putting your interests ahead of mine? Jesus tells us to serve like He did.

Let me give some practical example of what putting others first might look like.

That might mean rethinking your Marriage Contract as a Marriage Covenant … and instead of asking your spouse “what have you done for me today”, constantly having the attitude of “what can I do for you today?”

Becoming a discipleship expert might mean it is time for you to engage in Forgiveness – forgiving others as Jesus told Peter to do – always and completely. Who do you need to forgive? Your spouse, a family member, a coworker, a neighbor?

Or discipleship might mean Apologizing – How many of us have known people who, when they made mistakes, refused to apologize even when they knew they were wrong? How many of us are like that right now? Some of us need to throw away our pride and apologize to some people we know we have hurt.

Matthew Henry stated: “Those who are best prepared for the life to come are those that hold most loosely to this present life.”

Let us hold loosely to this life and hold on so desperately tight to Jesus, so much so that we are willing to be obedient to His command to serve others even if it hurts. Let us strive to be experts in discipleship – including putting others first.

I only named three discipleship areas we may be neglecting. What other discipleship qualities have we possible neglected and need to re-instill in our Christian walk?

Categories
Christian Living

You Are Not Free To Do What You Want

Have you ever looked through an old window whose glass has become distorted with age? glass windowWhen we look at the world through an aged window or through the side of a glass bottle, our vision is distorted due to the fact that we have added an inconsistent filter between us and the world we are viewing. An inconsistent filter gives inconsistent images… leading to wrong ideas about the “shape” of something. To see things properly, we have to change the filter we are looking through.

And bottles aren’t the only inconsistent filter!

Our own families, our education, our culture, our society… all of these are filters that prompt us to “look at” (& think about) the world around us in a certain way. How we think about people, about money, about entertainment… these filters color our perception and understanding. And unless we are aware of this, we won’t even know that we are looking at things through a lens that distorts.

So what we end up doing is looking at everything, even the Word of God, through the filter of American society, instead of looking at American society through the filter of God’s Word.

And since we are using a distorting lens, we Christians in America end up distorting the truths of God’s Word. We have somehow molded our understanding of the Scriptures around our American beliefs, such that we have distorted God’s teachings to help them “line-up” with American society. This leads to us having inconsistent lives and beliefs. And then we wonder why people who aren’t Christians have a hard time understanding God’s Word. What are some ways we do this?

  • When we pray more for the poor physical health of other Christians than we do for people who don’t yet know Jesus (and therefore already have “poor” spiritual health), then we have distorted why Jesus came to this earth.

  • When we are more focused on our entertainment (watching our TV, reading our novels, engaging in our outdoor recreational activities) than on reading God’s Word and talking to Him about it, then we have distorted how to develop a deep relationship with God.

  • When we consider our disobedience to God as “not that bad” because we are comparing them to the “worse” sins of others, instead of deciding to see how close we can have our lives line up with Jesus’, then we have distorted what it means to be a disciple.

  • When we have become so fixated on money and image that we will give our waiters and waitresses 20% tips so they think we are nice people, and buy houses and cars and “stuff” that cost exorbitant amounts to impress people we don’t know, and go into debt just so we can keep up with the “Joneses,” though we don’t even come close to giving 10% of our income to God, then we have distorted our understanding of God as provider and have worshiped the idol of the almighty dollar and the American dream above our Heavenly Father.

  • When pastors learn to become professionals who can run a church as a CEO and have everything their hearts’ desire without ever really seeking God’s face for direction, then we have distorted what it means to be a shepherd of God’s church.

  • When we believe that discussing politics, boycotting places that don’t share our beliefs, and calling & writing our senators about their political agendas are more important than telling our neighbors about Jesus and more important than discipling less mature Christians, then we have distorted our understanding of the Great Commission.

  • When we are more fixated on pleasing ourselves, on obtaining the American dream, about having blessings and comfort and security, then we have distorted what our freedom and liberty in Christ are all about.

    • You are not free to do whatever you would like.
    You are free to do whatever Jesus would like.
    You were bought with a price… by Him.

    What will you do to help reorient yourself to a healthier (and less distorted) Biblical understanding of discipleship?

    Can you think of other areas of Christianity that we have distorted?