First, it was interesting, then coincidence, then weird, then confirmation. God was speaking to me through his word…and through the words of others. It is refreshing…that God is doing new work in me once again. Not to say that he took time off…but this is a fresh wind of the Spirit blowing through the dusty chaff in my life. Praise be to God.

I find the Spirit speaking to me again in the words of Romans…specifically today from Romans 14-15. The theme: acceptance.

“Accept one another, just as Christ has accepted us.” Romans 15:7

Easy words to read with a cup of coffee in one hand and the Bible in the other, but wait, what does that say again? Accept one another just like Jesus accepts you?

Well now…that makes me need to step in front of the Jesus-mirror and examine the me who Jesus has accepted. The me who has trampled on grace more than a few times in my life. The me whose pride can easily jump into the judgement game at a moments notice. And yet, Jesus accepts me…and I am supposed to accept others in the same way?

But what about those who insist in their rightness…what about when people are showing off their spiritual arrogance and ignorance…oh, yea, Jesus has accepted my pride. But what about when people are spewing out hurtful and untrue words about us…um, yep, Jesus has accepted ours. But what about….um, yep.

Look at the context: Often we are tempted to read these scriptures through the lens of positioning ourselves in the place of the “strong” and others in the place of “weak faith.” We all tend to read scripture this way…it makes us feel better about ourselves. But what if we take away the jockeying for position…and just hear the Spirit speak these words, “accept others just as Christ accepts you.”

Today’s church is full of jews and gentiles (ok, I know I am stretching the context here a bit…wait, actually I’m not that much). We are a people labeled and divided by the have’s and have nots, insiders and the outsiders, republicans and democrats, upper-class and middle-class, conservative and liberal, cool and not-so-cool, the pre’s and the post’s, and the us and them.

Our divisive language does exactly what the evil one hopes it will do…it divides us. It separates the body, keeps us from discerning God’s leading and distracts us from fully participating in God’s mission in God’s world. We too are a people living inside temples but yet living outside the message of Jesus. We see ourselves as a circumcised people (part of the right family) who hold the rights to the Kingdom all to ourselves. But wait…aren’t we the gentiles? Of all people…shouldn’t we remember to hold loosely the “right” of being right?

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Do you get it? God is a God of hope…of hope. Hope that fills us with joy and peace….so that…we may be filled with the power of God.

Do you see it? Hope..hope that is from God…fills us with joy and peace…so that we may GO into the “not hope” and bring hope.

Lord Jesus, as you continue to mold us into your image, help us accept others as you accept us. Keep us from judgement. Mold our thinking and give us hope that enables us to accept others as you have accepted us.

Spring is a great reminder of what God does in life, or perhaps better said, what God does in death…he restores it to life. It is also a great reminder of our final hope…that what God once declared as “very good” (Gen. 1:31) he has committed himself to restore.

I am again reminded of the way Joseph Coleson concludes his chapter on “creation as missional paradigm” in the newly released book, Missio Dei; A Wesleyan Understanding (pg. 38-39).

We have but begun. God’s restoration of God’s good creation is integral to the gospel, the good news, partly because we are integral to the creation. Our existence as physical creatures teaches us how to encounter, interact, love, play, work – in short, to be the spiritual-physical beings God created us to be. The present earth is our nursery, playground, laboratory, apprenticeship, and schoolroom for what lies beyond. What that is, we cannot now begin to imagine, Paul tells us (1 Cor. 2:9), but it will not be completely other than the here and now. It will be a continuation, the continuation of the stalk of golden grain from the single seed fallen into the ground. It will be the continuation between the lips of a mother on her infant’s cheek, and the lips of lovers on their wedding night. In their places, both ar valid, valuable, delightful, holy. But the wedding night requires two mature persons, and maturity requires time, practice, experience, learning. Humans learn maturity by living in God’s good creation.

If our preaching and thinking defaults to “us being saved” as the primary focus of the Gospel, then we have trampled on the work of Christ.  We have lessened his goal of redeeming the whole world…to see it once again unimpaired and rehabilitated as the splendor of God’s creation.

It is not God’s goal for us to simply preach “be saved.” The fact that salvation can be experienced by us is an example of the incredible power and mission of God’s big picture of redemption, but it is not the primary goal.

Often we wear thin God’s energies with our constant plea for attention for ourselves. We pray, “God keep me from this, God, please deliver me from that…”. We beg for his attention and demand his efforts in our lives. But if we ever get in touch with the total reality of God’s redemptive mission, we would never bother God again with our personal complaints.

Like the Apostle Paul we would welcome the pains, heart-breaks, and disappointments because these things keep us reliant on the power of God.  These things point us too and remind us of the work there is yet to do in this world.

When God’s mission becomes a reality in our thinking, our calling is clear. We are called to join him in the big picture of redeeming the beauty and goodness of the created order. Our mission is to do more than focus on problems of individual sin and guilt as though God’s mission is primarily focused on “saving us” from being eternally punished for our individual sins. God’s mission is much larger than us…but thanks be to God that it includes us!

“Let us praise him that he hath given us to see the deplorable state of all that are round about us; to see the wickedness which overflows the earth, and yet not be borne away by the torrent! We see the general, the almost universal contagion; and yet it cannot approach to hurt us! . . . God will arise and maintain his own cause. And the whole creation shall then be delivered both from moral and natural corruption. Sin, and its consequence, pain, shall be no more; holiness and happiness will cover the earth. Then shall all the ends of the world see the salvation of our God. And the whole race of mankind shall know and love and serve God, and reign with him forever and ever!” -The Mystery of Iniquity, The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley.

- Some of these thoughts are paraphrased from Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest, pg 21, 23-24.

What future are you deciding right now? Are you choosing a future of life? Or death?

Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
do not depend on your own understanding.
Seek his will in all you do,
and he will show you which path to take.

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. 

I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him. In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.

If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face. Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality. Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody. Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.” Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.

In Mark 5:36 we find Jesus on a healing spree and people were asking for help at every step. One of those asking for the attention of Jesus was a man named Jairus. He was hoping for Jesus to come and heal his daughter. But before he could get the attention of Jesus, someone came and told him it was too late, his daughter had died.

I love what is recorded about Jesus’ response…”ignoring what they said”…he continued to press forward on his mission of hope.

Always in leadership there will be those who will criticize and doubt. And it is easy to get distracted and lose hope in the midst of the hope thieves. But Jesus gives us a great picture of continuing to press forward and ignoring what they said, encouraging others to believe.

“As a pastor, I am learning to surround myself with leaders who take their work seriously, but not themselves. In church leadership there are always some who need a leadership role to feel valued, and others who simply value the role. I want to be surrounded by people who value the role and don’t need to feel value from the role.

The reasons are obvious; as Christians we are called to servant leadership not selfish leadership. And those who take themselves too seriously are the ones who drain you of energy, vision, and passion for the ministry. Servant leaders add value to you as a pastor, confirming and directing from an objective point of reference with the desire to add value rather than steal it.

I am learning to pay attention to key words and actions that help me determine who surrounds me in leadership. Beware of the person who demands to be included in decisions even when it isn’t part of their direct role, or the person who constantly complains about others in leadership, and especially the person who gives their opinion more often then they ask questions. Build around you those who often speak words of encouragement, who can speak opposing views without de-valuing others, who question you in order to better hear you, who can excel in a given responsibility while giving credit to the team, and those who seek to dream even bigger than you.”

Right now I am learning how to lead people into new places that involve the chance at failure. We are dreaming and discussing how to take some strategic risks that we hope will have huge spiritual impact…but like any change, it involves the risk of failure.

Today I watched a great video about the the lessons of failure. It is worth every one of the eleven minutes it takes to watch…so today, will you come to class with me? Let’s learn together. Click on the “bookie” link to watch this video.

Bookie from LifeChurch.tv on Vimeo.

On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” So he got up and stood there.

Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”

He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was completely restored. But they were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.

There are the three main characters; Jesus, the man with the hand, and the Pharisees. Here is what I observe:

The man with the hand…was a man who wanted to work (extra biblical writings mention that he was previously a stone mason and he came to Jesus wanting to be healed so he could go back to work), he wanted to be healed for a purpose.

Jesus…knew he was being judged by the legalistic Pharisees…and he chose to highlight their legalism, not by confronting them with words (this time), but by helping the man change his life.

The Pharisees…were looking for a reason to accuse (usually when we look for it, we can find it). They are legalists and thus anti-Jesus because they loved their rules and regulations more than they loved God.

How does this story change you?