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"He was nothing special to look at. He could walk down this street todayand not one of you would even notice him. In fact he had the kind of face you would shy away from,certain he wouldn't fit in with your crowd.But he was as gentle a man as one would ever know. He could silence detractors without ever raising hisvoice. He never bullied his way; never drew attention to himself nor did he ever pretend to like what vexedhis soul. He was real, to the very core.And at the core of that being was love. Wow! Did he love!We didn’t even know what love was, until we saw it in him. It was everyone, too, even those who hatedhim. He still cared for them, hoping somehow they would find a way out of their self-inflicted souls torecognize who stood among them.And with all that love, he was completely honest. Yet even when his actions or words exposed people’sdarkest motives, they didn’t feel shamed. They felt safe, really safe with him. His words conveyed noteven a hint of judgment, simply an entreaty to come to God. There was no one you would trust morequickly with your deepest secrets. If someone were going to catch you at your worst moment you'd want itto be him. He wasted no time mocking others, nor their religious trappings.If he had something to say to them, he’d say it and move on and you would know you’d been lovedmore than anyone had ever loved you before.I'm not talking about mamby-pamby sentimentalism either. He loved, really loved. It didn't matter if youwere Pharisee or prostitute, disciple or blind beggar, Jew, Samaritan or Gentile. His love held itself out for any to embrace. Most did, too, when they saw him. Though so few ended up following him, for the fewmoments his presence passed by them, they tasted a freshness and power they could never deny evenyears later. Somehow he seemed to know everything about them, but loved them deeply all the same.And when he hung there from that filthy cross, that love still poured down--on mocker and disillusionedfriend alike.As he approached the dark chamber of death, wearied of the torture and feeling separated from hisFather, he continued to drink from the cup that would finally consume our self-will and shame. There wasno finer moment in all of human history. His anguish became the conduit for his life to be shared with us.This was no madman. This was God's Son, poured out to the last breath, to open full and free access for you to his Father.If I were you, I would waste far less time ragging on religion and find out just how much Jesus wants to beyour friend without any strings attached. He will care for you and if given a chance will become more realto you than your best friend and you will cherish him more than anything else you desire. He will give youa purpose and a fullness of life that will carry you through every stress and pain and will change you fromthe inside to show you what true freedom and joy really are.Understand something, this life in Jesus is a real thing. It’s not a game. When people sensesomething’s wrong, you know what I’ve discovered? Something usually is.Is your faith working for you? Are you experiencing God's life to the degree you desire it?Are you filled with the love of Jesus like you were the first day you believed in him?You know what this whole thing is about? It's about life-God's real life filling your own. He moves inso that you will no longer entertain any doubts about his reality. It's the kind of relationship that Adamtasted when he walked in the garden with God and heard his great plan to have a people through whomHecould demonstrate his reality to the world in more ways than you could ever imagine. It is the kind of lifeJesus lived that was more than sufficient to meet every need he faced, from feeding multitudes with a littleboy's lunch to healing a sick woman who touched the hem of his robe. This life is not some philosophicalthought you can conjure up through meditation or some kind of theological abstraction to be debated. It isfullness. It is freedom. It is joy and peace no matter what happens-even if your doctor uses the 'C' wordwhen he gives you the results of your MRI. This is the kind of life that he came to share with everyonewhowill give up trying to control their own lives and embrace his agenda.It's certainly not what so many have come to believe, like working hard, building big ministries or newbuildings. It's about life that you can see, taste and touch; something you can frolic in every day that you
 
live.I know my words fail to describe it adequately, but you know what I’m talking about.It is epidemic today. Somehow our spiritual experience makes the wrong things important and we end updistracted from his true life.It happened in the early church too. Do you remember what happened in Ephesus and what Jesus said tothem in hisRevelation letter? Their theology was impeccable. They knew the truth so well they could spot error like afly in a bowl of soup at a hundred paces. They were not afraid to confront those who put themselvesforward in ministry to find out who was telling the truth and who was fabricating a message just to build aname for themselves. Their endurance in times of suffering was second to none in all Christendom.Suffering seemed to make them stronger the longer they faced it and they never complained whenassailedby others. But for all that, was Jesus pleased with them?What they lacked created such a vacuum that any good they might haveaccomplished was swallowed up by it. They had left the ravishing love they had for Jesus in thebeginning.Without it their service was meaningless. You can get so busy working for him that you lose sight of knowinghim. Too little of it was motivated by their love for him or his for them. That made everything else they didnot just worthless, but destructive actually.Strange isn’t it, that forming something ... could do what persecution couldn't?There is nothing the Father desires for you more than that you fall squarely in the lap of his loveand never move from that place for the rest of your life. God’s plan from the days of creation to the day of the Second Coming was designed to bring people into the relationship of love that the Father, Son andSpirit have shared for eternity. He wants nothing lessóand nothing else!This is no distant God who sent his Son with a list of rules to follow or rituals to practice. His mission wasto invite us into his loveóinto a relationship with his Father that he described as friendship. But what dowedo? We are so quickly captured by a work-driven religious culture that thrives on guilt, conformity andmanipulation that it devours the very love it seeks to sustain.In Ephesus it was ferreting out false teachers. In Galatia it was getting everyone to observe the OldTestament rituals. Today it's to get people to cooperate with the church program. It doesn't matter whatleads people away from God’s life. Anything will do, as long as it preoccupies them enough to serve as anadequate substitute for the real thing. It's easier to see the problem when the standard is circumcision inEphesus than when it is Sunday morning attendance in Kingston. But both can lead to the same place-bored and disillusioned believers, no longer embracing Father's life.The routine eventually withers the life, no matter how good it is.When you realize that the routine you've stumbled into is not substantially contributing to your desire to know God better, some incredible things can happen. Sitting through the same program weekafter week wears thin. Aren't you tired of finding yourself year after year falling to the same temptations,praying the same unanswered prayers and seeing no evidence that you are growing to discern God’svoicewith any greater clarity?Be honest about your boredom and disillusionment.Honesty demonstrates more faith than your discomfort with it.Just be real with Father and resist the urges to crawl back into your shell and silently endure lifelessness.Your struggle stems from the call of God's Spirit to your own.Ask him to forgive you for substituting anything for the power of his love and invite him to show you howyour diligentefforts at good works for him may be obscuring his love for you. Let God do the rest. He will draw you tohimself.Won't it be a joy again to wake up confident about being loved by God every day, without having toearn it by any act of righteousness on your part? That is the secret to first love. Don't try to earn it. Know
 
that you are accepted and loved, not for what you can do for God, or somehow hoping that you will beworthy of his acceptance, but because his greatest desire is to have you as one of his children.Jesus came to remove any obstacle that would prevent that from happening.In this kingdom you really do get what you seek. That is the point of the whole thing.If you are looking for a relationship with God you will find it.This works the other way around as well.If you look at what you've ended up with, then you’ll know what you've really been seeking!Don't you realize that the most powerful thing about the gospel is that it liberates us from the concept thatGod dwells in any building? For a people steeped in the rites of temple worship this was either great or terrible news. His followers thought it was great. No longer did they have to think of God as cloaked intherecesses of the temple, available only to special people at select times.Do you remember what Stephen said right before they picked up stones to kill him?'The Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands.'That's when they turned on him. It reminded them of Jesus' challenge to destroy the templeand he would rebuild it in three days. People can get very touchy about their buildings, especially if theythink God dwells in them.What's easier for you to do, pursue relationship with the Father or your own sense of personal success?That’s the real test. It seems to me you wouldn’t be so desperate if it had really taught you how to knowFather's love. Instead, you’re so busy seeking everyone's approval, you don't realize you already havehis.You are struggling for the wrong thing. You think that you can earn Father's approval. We'reapproved not by anything we can do, but by what he did for us on the cross. Honestly, there's not onething you can do to make him love you any more today; and there's not one thing you can do to make himlove you any less either. He just loves you.It is your security in that love that will change you, not your struggle to try and earn it.If you never counseled another person or taught another class, Jake, he would love you no less.The approval (you pursue) does far more to distract you from God than it does to open you up to him.Do you know that more than 90% of children who grow up in Sunday school leave the congregationwhen they leave their parents' home?What ... you have here is a system of religious obligation that distorts it all.Until you see that, you'll never know what it means to walk with Father.Everything else in your life might be based on performance, but not relationship with him.It's not based on what we do, but on what he's done.You're trying to earn a relationship you'll never earn.Memorizing Scriptures or attending services are never going to be enough to earn a relationship.The trail you're on doesn't go where you've been told it goes.It will make you a good Christian in the eyes of others, but it will not let you know him.One of the most significant lessons Jesus taught his disciples was to stop looking for God's life in theregimen of rituals and rules. He came not to refurbish their religion, but to offer them a relationship. Wereall those healings on the Sabbath, and the recording of them, just a coincidence that he found more sickpeople then? Of course not! He wanted his disciples to know that the rules and traditions of men get intheway of the power and life of his Father.And it can be pretty captivating, too, because we all do what we do thinking it pleases God. No prison isasstrong as religious obligation. It takes us captive even while we’re patting ourselves on the back.We can’t love what we fear.You can't foster a relationship with someone who is always checking your performance to make sure it'sadequate enough to merit his friendship. The more you focus on your own needs and failures, the moredistant Father will seem to you. Guilt does that. It shoves us away from God in our time of need, insteadof allowing us to run to him, presenting our greatest failures and questions so that we might receive his
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