Our faith says that Jesus Christ is Lord, and this is the one fact upon which we build our lives. And, it’s not simply that Jesus is Lord; it’s how He is Lord.

The apostle Paul tells us that this One who “existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with a God a thing to be grasped” (Phil. 2:6). This alone speaks volumes but there is more. This One “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant (Phil. 2:7). That pushes the envelope a bit, doesn’t it? God becomes a servant. In what universe does a god become a servant? In our universe gods have servants making over them twenty-four seven. They don’t serve; instead, they are served.

Jesus comes to us as the One who serves, and He served all the way to Calvary where He died on a cross. A God who dies on behalf of his kingdom, that’s strange, too, isn’t it? In our universe people all over the kingdoms are dying for the kings and the kingdoms. In the economy of Jesus only one has to die, and that One is the King Himself.

Because of the kind of Lord Jesus is it is said of Him that “God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name” (Phil. 2:9). This is true to such a degree that Paul says someday “every knee will bow….and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord…” (Phil. 2:11).

And, exactly why are we told all these things? Because we are called to have the same attitude in ourselves that was in Christ Jesus (Phil. 2:5). As He emptied Himself let us empty ourselves and live so as to reflect that the One we say is Lord is the One who comes to us as Servant.

Paul’s testimony was clear and concise: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). He believed that if he died he would “be with Christ” (vs. 23) and that if he lived it would “mean fruitful labor” (vs. 22). He was willing to accept whatever came his way and he would leave that decision to God.

I suppose, in the end, we do whatever our faith calls us to do, and leave outcome decisions to God. Our role is faithfulness. It is up to God as to where our faithfulness leads. It might mean death and to be with Christ now or it might mean life and continued ministry in the name of the One to whom we have entrusted everything.

To live in this world, according to Paul, is to conduct oneself in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ (see Phil. 1:27). For him this means “standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel” (vs. 28). If we die, we go to be with Jesus. If we live, we go on to live together “standing firm…in one spirit…with one mind…striving together.”

Faithfulness is not about isolated and private obedience. It is about “striving together…for the faith of the gospel.”

On the way to heaven we really ought to conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel, and we really ought to do it TOGETHER.

Don’t you want to be a part of a community of people who are standing firm together and who are striving together for the faith of the gospel? Sure sounds like the place I want to be. Sounds like the people of whom I want to be apart.

Jesus explains grace in such a way that one must conclude it is simply outrageous. It seems that a certain debtor owed a creditor more money than most of us will see in a lifetime -- ten thousand talents. Doesn't compute in my brain until we see that one talent was an amount exceeding a fifteen-year salary. Fifteen years of income multiplied by ten thousand. You do the math. It's outrageous, ludicrous, and absurd. And, you know what? The creditor had mercy and forgave the entire debt. Talk about winning the lottery without buying a ticket. This is huge.

Then, this forgiven but incredibly ungrateful man goes out and finds somebody who owes him one hundred denarii, about three months wages, demands his money, seizes the man, begins to choke him, demanding "Pay back what you owe" (Matt. 18:21-25). And, Jesus then makes it known that He is not a happy camper and says that if this is the game the man wants to play, so be it, but he will receive the punishment due one who was forgiven so much but who forgave so little; and off he went to the place where he would be held to the strictest accountability until his ten thousand talents were paid in full.

God stuns us by His outrageous generosity and then calls us to live in our worlds in that same outrageous generosity. Do you know who Christians are? They are people who have been stunned by God's amazing grace and then live stunning others by extending grace.

Don't you just love living for Jesus!

True Life in community is a tricky thing, including the community of those who believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Life in His community means a corporate uniting of individual “living stones” into “a spiritual house for a holy priesthood (See I Peter 2:1-10). Individuality is not Lord here. Rather, Jesus is Lord; and, it is His life in the midst of the community that makes the community what it is.

St. Francis said it was in dying that we find eternal life. In that light, it is in living, not selfishly but for the sake of the community of Jesus, that we find ourselves. It is together we pray and fellowship and work and praise and honor God. We are on the journey together. We’re not Lone Rangers; we are the fellowship of the redeemed.

Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am in there in their midst” (Matt. 18:20). A community of two becomes a community of three because Jesus is there, and community of three becomes a community of four because Jesus is there IN THEIR MIDST.

Is it too much to ask that we live empty of self indulgence and filled with the Spirit of God so that Jesus may be in our midst? After all, isn’t it the presence and influence of Jesus we all seek?

Come, Lord Jesus. Come into the midst of your people.

We human beings are so tied into ourselves that it becomes a challenge to table our interests on behalf of "God's interests" (Matt. 16:23). Yet, Jesus calls us to do just this. And, apparently, Jesus feels very strongly about this because when the apostle Peter set his mind on man's interest, even if to do so would spare Jesus death on the cross, Jesus shot back, "Get behind me, Satan" (Matt. 16:2). That's a pretty heavy retort, don't you think? And, Jesus went from this retort into the language of each disciple denying himself, taking up his cross, and following Jesus into whatever it might mean to carry the cross.

Jesus saw this discussion as one of deep spiritual matters, soul matters, where people must decide what is more important, their soul or their interests. Most people choose interests over soul, and consequently the world is comprised of people who want what they want when they want it, and if they don't get it, then they will find a way to get it anyway.

There are some who choose the way of the cross. To them nothing in this world matters as much as do the interests of God. They long never to be a stumbling block to what God is seeking to do in the world. They have taken up their cross and are honestly seeking be all that Jesus would have them be.

God bless them; and may their tribe increase.

Sometimes Jesus is hard to grasp, and maybe that’s the way it should be because it is far too easy to put Him in our theological confinements and forget that we’re not in charge. Case in point, a Canaanite woman who thunders into Jesus world one day, crying out for a mercy that would heal her daughter of a condition she called, “cruelly demon-possessed” (Matt. 15:22).

To the surprise of those of us who believe Jesus trips all over Himself to help people, He doesn’t answer her. To make matters worse the disciples implored Jesus to send her away. So we have a woman who is crying out and disciples who are imploring, and a Savior who responds to the situation uncharacteristically.

The woman refuses to give up, leading Jesus to explain to her that his mission was to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and that it wasn’t’ good to take the children’s food and give it to dogs (Matt. 15:24-26). It didn’t matter, this woman had a child in need and, chosen or not, she needed God. This persistence caught Jesus’ attention and he exclaimed to her that her faith was great, and that her daughter would be healed.

Isn't that amazing? A woman from the wrong side of the tracks becomes a role model for faith. My response to this is, “You go girl! May your tribe in increase.”

Give grace a chance. This simple challenge has been in my thinking. How do we live in such a way that we are giving grace a chance, an opportunity, to fill the lives of people and the situations in which they find themselves? How do we go about daily giving grace a chance to work its wonderful work in our lives? As followers of Jesus we ought to be so very excited about the grace of God that we cannot imagine living without sharing the life of our Lord with each other and with those who live among us.

You don't have to live in my world very long to know that I am a USC Trojan football fan. Don't ever say anything negative about coach, Pete Carroll, and don't ever make fun of Traveler, the noble white horse that appears at all SC home games with a regal Trojan warrior astride, Are we clear???????

Sometimes I wonder how long people have to be around me to know that I am a fan, a disciple, of Jesus Christ. I hope not too long, for He is more important to me than anything else in the world.

How about you? Do you let people know that you follow Jesus? I hope so. In fact, I hope that you will find a way to invite people into the fellowship of Jesus' church. Let them know that He is here for them and that you are here for them, too.

GIVE GRACE A CHANCE.

Here is a great thought to think. It comes from African-American poet James Weldon Johnson in his poem, "The Creation"

"Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled him down;
And there the Great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in his own image...."

"Let the Church of the Nazarene be true to its commission; not great and elegant buildings; but to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and wipe away the tears of sorrowing and gather jewels for His diadem. We want places so plain that every board will say welcome to the poorest."

General Superintendent Phineas F. Bresee,
in a sermon preached on January 15, 1902

Here is a wonderful word from Henri Nouwen. It comes from the June 10, 2008 Daily Meditation

He calls it, Empowered to Be, and Nouwen hits the mark as he so often does.

Who are we? Are we what we do? Are we what others say about us? Are we the power we have? It often seems that way in our society. But the Spirit of Jesus given to us reveals our true spiritual identities. The Spirit reveals that we belong not to a world of success, fame, or power but to God. The world enslaves us with fear; the Spirit frees us from that slavery and restores us to the true relationship. That is what Paul means when he says: "All who are guided by the Spirit of God are sons [daughters] of God, for what you received was not the spirit of slavery to bring you back into fear; you received the spirit of adoption, enabling us to cry out, 'Abba, Father!'" (Romans 8:15).

Who are we? We are God's beloved sons and daughters!

Here is an insight worth talking about over coffee and maybe even grappling a bit with in the process of spiritual formation. It is from Barbara Brown Taylor’s book, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith.

“I know that the Bible is a special kind of book, but I find it as seductive as any other. If I am not careful, I can begin to mistake the words on the page for the realities they describe. I can begin to love the dried ink marks on the page more than I love the encounters that gave rise to them. If I am not careful, I can decide that I am really much happier reading my Bible than I am entering into what God is doing in my own time and place, since shutting the book to go outside will involve the very great risk of taking part in stories that are still taking shape.”

May I pass along this wonderful prayer of A. W. Tozer

Lord, I would trust You completely; I would be altogether Yours; I would exalt You above all. I desire that I may feel no sense of possessing anything outside of You. I want constantly to be aware of Your overshadowing Presence and to hear Your speaking Voice. I long to live in restful sincerity of heart. I want to live so fully in the Spirit that all my thought may be as sweet incense ascending to You and every act of my life may be an act of worship. Therefore, I pray in the words of Your great servant of old, ‘I invite You to cleanse the intent of my heart with the unspeakable gift of Your grace, that I may perfectly love You and worthily praise You.’ And all this I confidently believe You will grant me through the merits of Jesus Christ Your Son. Amen.

The Gospel is about the life of Jesus in the life of His new creation. In Christ the Church lives and moves and has its being. In Christ, the Church is formed and shaped by the cross, and in that cross the Church finds the meaning and depth of her existence.

We Christians don't live for ourselves or for our own personal agendas. God's agenda is the most important thing in all the world to those of us who seek to carry Jesus' cross with Him, and we live for God regardless of what it might or might not personally mean to us in our private lives.

Jesus calls us to a faithfulness that lives in response to God and to what God is doing in the world. Our question is not, "what's in it for me?" but rather, "What does it mean for us to lose our lives for the sake of the One who both created and redeems us?" What's in it for God? What's in it for the kingdom? What's in it for the Church?

Like queen Esther of old, we come to each day released to the fact that we may perish but even if we do we know that God is present and at work, at that His will, shall be accomplished. This puts everything in perspective and releases us to let go of any and all distractions, and to live in the "good, acceptable and perfect will of God" (Rom. 12:2).

Take up the cross and follow Jesus into that which is good, acceptable and perfect.

In his book, With God in The Crucible, Peter Storey who pastored for years in south Africa and who is now Professor Emeritus at Duke University has a wonderful message entitled, Let God Be God! In this message Storey writes,

…the Church must be the Church. Jesus brought into being an entirely new, radically different community, offering people a citizenship transcending the frontiers of nations and contrasting powerfully with the norms around it. The Church is not not simply another institution in society, nor is it an extension of the traditions of any one nation….
The Church must be different from, and often over against and in contradiction to, the ways of all nations. That alternative identity must be cherished and guarded as the most important characteristic of the Church. The richest gift the Church can give the world is to be different from it. It must be a constant irritant that the world doesn’t want, but cannot do without.” (Abington Press: Nashville, 2002)

Storey then shares a personal word of experiences in South Africa. He writes,

When we were cast out of the corridors of power and disowned and vilified by the sate, at first we saw it as a loss of influence. But in that loss we found our souls and rediscovered our identity. We were set free from the false patriotism that worships the nation’s idols. We found instead a higher patriotism that determined to hold the nation accountable to the Kingdom of God and God’s justice before everything else.

I embrace what Storey says, and I believe that he is on to something rooted and grounded in Scripture, and offers us a way of being the salt and light of Jesus in the world, in a way that is uniquely of Jesus.

Compassion filled His heart as Jesus looked over a crowd and realized how much the people needed God (see Matt. 9:35-38). He then turned to His disciples and challenged them to pray that God would "send out workers into His harvest field."

Because of the extreme need at hand what kind of "workers" do you believe Jesus was calling into His harvest field? I think that not just anybody should show up for God in a world desperately in need of God. Those who dare be "workers" for God need to be a special breed. What breed exactly? In Matthew 10:8 Jesus gives us a hint. There He says, "Freely you have received, freely give."

Workers for God need to realize how much God has given to them, then take that generosity and turn it around on others. There is no room for tightwads in the harvest field that belongs to God. Great grace received become great grace given.

FREELY. What a great word. What a great way to live. What a great way to make God look good. What a great way to be to others what God is to us.

Am wondering if there are some folks out there who would pass along to me the name of the candidate they plan on voting for in the November presidential election? And, would you be willing to pass along 4 or 5 reasons you are supporting your candidate? Thank you! Any input will be helpful for a project I am working on.
God bless.

In a message entitled, Becoming What God Intended You to Be, Dr. Anthony Campolo shares what is really an important story as well as a crucial evaluation. He writes

At Eastern University, where I taught for so many years, I would constantly encounter students who would ask a simple question: How can I know what God wants me to do with my life? What a question! But I could never answer the question because I'm not sure that Jesus wants us to look that far ahead. I'm convinced that what Jesus calls us to do is to solve this problem: What should I be doing today? He says quite pointedly, "do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' Each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matthew 6:31, 34).

After quoting Jesus Campolo then asks, "Are you going to do what God wants you to do today? That's the ultimate question. Everyday you should get up and say, "This is the day that the Lord has made."

The point in all this? Focus on today. Do what faith calls you to do today. In time the days will become a story, a history, and you will discover that Jesus has led you all the way.

The fact of the matter is that Christians are a sent people. The church isn’t present to be a nice fixture for cultures or to offer a pleasant contribution to an enjoyable conversation being held by nice people. The Church is present because Jesus called her to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19). The Church is sent.

It seems Jesus was intent on bringing into the world a people who would forever proclaim that His life “was the light of men” (John 1:4). His life was good for people who lived in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:7). His story is to be told, His life is to be shared, and His glory is to be revealed in all the world. This is what the Church is to be about in her service to “go and make disciples.”

So, how is the Church doing? How faithful are we to proclaim that Jesus is the light of men? Are we passionate about telling His story, sharing His life, and revealing His glory?

In short, how are we doing when it comes to being faithful to the Christ who saved us and who fills us with His Spirit? For two thousand years somebody somewhere was faithful, so much so that in time the message reached us. What shall they say about us in the times to come?

On one remarkable day the Holy Spirit filled the waiting disciples with His very own presence and the world has not been the same since. On that day the Church was born, and a movement was let loose in history that would boldly go to the remotest parts of the earth in the name of Jesus, proclaiming that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world. It was quite a day.

The twenty-eight chapters of the Book of Acts gives us stories of the first efforts at fulfilling the Great Commission, an effort that is still under way, twenty centuries later. The book closes somewhere around the late 60s or early 70s. Since then, some have suggested, the Church has been writing the twenty-ninth chapter of Acts.

Here in the opening years of the twenty-first century the Church finds itself at a time when the message of Jesus is desperately needed. To live that message the Church is still dependent upon the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. The Church was birthed in supernatural power, carried out it's first mission efforts in supernatural power, and will be fruitful today to degree that it yields it's life to the supernatural possibilities of God in the world. Not magic, mind you, but supernatural, God-explained, power. A much quoted but perhaps most under-used Scripture still holds true: "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit," says the Lord Almighty" (Zech. 4:6). It was true for ancient Zerubbabel and it is true for us, too.

Get connected to God, and stay connected. Let God be God in your life and in the life of the Church. May all that we do and may all that we are be defined by the presence of the Holy Spirit. He is our POWER.

The word of Jesus to His disciples as He ascended back to the Father was, "wait" (Acts. 1:4). He called them to wait in Jerusalem until God gave to them a gift they would desperately need. They had been aware of a baptism with water but God was going to baptize them "with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:5).

The Spirit baptism was going to be unique in that when He came upon them they would "receive power" (Acts 1:8). The power would enable them to be faithful to God, so faithful that they would live as witnesses of Christ as the Church spread from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and "to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Two thousand years later the Church lives in this same promise and in the same power. At least, the Church is invited to do so.

Whether or not the Church lives in the power of the Spirit today is under debate. The truth is, however, we are never the Church when we live by a power that is not of God. God's power is what makes us who we are.

Our abilities, our talents, our savvy, our skills, our gifts are wonderful, and thank God for them. But, these are not what make us the Church. It is the power of the Holy Spirit in a people that makes them the Church. In Him we live and move and have our being. It is the power of the Spirit who brings to us the very life of God that makes us the Church

Don't try to be the Church in your own capacities, but do let the Holy Spirit baptize you with power. Then, you will find that God is at work in your life, and that you are a vital part of something wonderful for and from God ~~ the Church of Jesus Christ.