If Our Lord insisted upon obedience He would become a taskmaster, and He would cease to have any authority. He never insists on obedience, but when we do see Him we obey Him instantly, He is easily Lord, and we live in adoration of Him from morning till night. The revelation of my growth in grace is the way in which I look upon obedience. We have to rescue the word “obedience” from the mire. Obedience is only possible between equals; it is the relationship between father and son, not between master and servant. “I and My Father are one.” “Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered.” The Son’s obedience was as Redeemer, because He was Son, not in order to be Son.

These words, this principle, is rooted deeply in my life. I want (desperately) for God’s Spirit to continue to soften me, make me sensitive to the selfish wanderings of life…to help me quickly recognize any wrong doings. Like CW, I recognize the mountain of selfishness that we all have to work through…and in the ups and downs of that journey…may we lean on the grace provide through Christ.

I want a principle within
Of watchful, godly fear,
A sensibility of sin,
A pain to feel it near.
I want the first approach to feel
Of pride or wrong desire,
To catch the wand’ring of my will,
And quench the kindling fire.

From Thee that I no more may part,
No more Thy goodness grieve,
The filial awe, the fleshly heart,
The tender conscience, give.
Quick as the apple of an eye,
O God, my conscience make;
Awake my soul when sin is nigh,
And keep it still awake.

Almighty God of truth and love,
To me Thy pow’r impart;
The mountain from my soul remove,
The hardness from my heart.
Oh, may the least omission pain
My reawakened soul,
And drive me to that blood again,
Which makes the wounded whole.

Missional represents a significant shift in the way we think about the church. As the people of a missionary God, we ought to engage the world the same way he does—by going out rather than just reaching out. To obstruct this movement is to block God’s purposes in and through his people. When the church is in mission, it is the true church.

But equally there is also the character part of Christ-likeness (I love our missional and holy character roots of the Church of the Nazarene…and I firmly believe God is actively stirring up generations  and re-emphasizing the equal balance of character AND mission). Personal character matters. How we behave ethically and morally matters. The Christian lives we live today must match our final goal for which we have been made and redeemed.  The pursuit of Christ-likeness in our character must continually be our wholehearted desire.

Over and over again the Bible calls for a revolution – a transformation of character that takes us past our present pursuits of sex, money, and power and into a pattern of living that reflects God (Christ-likeness). Galatians 5 helps me understand this pattern of living:

^16-18My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

^19-21It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.

^22-23But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

^23-24Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

^25-26Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.  - The Message.

This Christ-likeness of character (holiness) is the work of the Holy Spirit in us. And it is somewhat measurable by the fruits mentioned in vs. 22-23…affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity, compassion, love for others, humility, self-control…and also contrasted with the actions listed in 19-21.

A group of people devoted to living out this Christ-likeness would be a living, breathing, picture of the Kingdom of God here on earth.

The Church is called to be that expression…to live out Christ-likeness as a present expression of the Kingdom of God.

May it be so.

If I am reading the moving winds of God’s leadership right, there is a massive shift developing within the churches of today. God is calling his Church back to his mission…back into the stream of relevance for his purposes.

As I preached this past Sunday, I confessed to the church that God has been stirring within me, bringing me back to a place of Christ-centered passion for his kingdom. If our patented theologies don’t cause us to move (salt and light) into the darkness of the world around us…then I think we have missed the point of the message of Jesus…incarnate, Immanuel, empowering Spirit…

I am on a new warpath…literally…a spiritual battle of bringing light into the darkness of pride, greed, lust, lies, brokenness, poverty, the forgotten, the lonely, the sin-filled, the sick…

Gooooyeeee!

“The disciples had to tarry until the day of Pentecost not for their own preparation only; they had to wait until the Lord was glorified historically. As soon as He was glorified, what happened? “Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.” The parenthesis in John 7:39 (“For the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified”) does not apply to us; the Holy Ghost has been given, the Lord is glorified; the waiting depends not on God’s providence, but on our fitness.

The Holy Spirit’s influence and power were at work before Pentecost, but He was not here. Immediately Our Lord was glorified in Ascension, the Holy Spirit came into this world, and He has been here ever since. We have to receive the revelation that He is here. The reception of the Holy Spirit is the maintained attitude of a believer. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive quickening life from the ascended Lord.

It is not the baptism of the Holy Ghost which changes men, but the power of the ascended Christ coming into men’s lives by the Holy Ghost that changes them. We too often divorce what the New Testament never divorces. The baptism of the Holy Ghost is not an experience apart from Jesus Christ: it is the evidence of the ascended Christ.

The baptism of the Holy Ghost does not make you think of Time or Eternity, it is one amazing glorious NOW. “This is life eternal that they might know Thee.” Begin to know Him now, and finish never.” – My Utmost for His Highest

(PS. I would recommend checking out Francis Chan’s website and book, Forgotten God.)

Today while I was reading and researching for an upcoming sermon series, I ran across this prayer written by St. Bonaventure (1221-1274 A.D.).

Lord Jesus, as God’s Spirit came down and rested upon you,
May the same Spirit rest on us,
Bestowing his sevenfold gifts.
First, grant us the gift of understanding,
By which your precepts may enlighten our minds.
Second, grant us counsel, by which we may follow
in your footsteps on the path of righteousness.
Third, grant us courage,
by which we may ward off the enemy’s attacks.
Fourth, grant us knowledge,
by which we can distinguish good from evil.
Fifth, grant us piety,
by which we may acquire compassionate hearts.
Sixth, grant us fear,
by which we may draw back from evil
and submit to what is good.
Seventh, grant us wisdom,
that we may taste fully the life-giving sweetness of your love.

Happy Birthday Church…and as we celebrate, may we not extinguish the flames of your Spirit, but allow them to purify our lives through and through.

This knowledge certainly puts life into perspective when the “Joneses” no longer live across the street but in a different country. We are used to measuring our value through the comparisons of those whom we live closest too (our neighborhood and friends) rather than the global view.

I wonder how God views our riches? [insert sarcasm here] Does he use the local street view or the global view to make his consideration of our generosity?

It is amazing how generous and willing to give we become when we visit places of extreme poverty. I have been in places in Central America and even in local homeless shelters that I refused to leave without giving the extra dollars in my pocket and extra clothes in my bag. It wasn’t a sacrifice to give…it was a moral mandate. I couldn’t have left the needy in their state knowing that I was living in abundance.

How rich are you? How does measuring our resources in light of the transcendent and global view of God change the way we build our plans to spend?

Perhaps one of the hardest leadership components of pastoring is leading the church community toward embracing a biblical pattern of spiritual discipleship. We (the Church) have become so ingrained in institutional growth models (focused on organizational growth rather than interpersonal or corporate spiritual formation) that we often struggle to embrace the accountability of discipleship that happens best in the context of the community.

Our human tendencies lead us to flee from inter-relational discord  or conflict that often comes from being in community with one another and instead of benefiting from the formation in these relationships, we run away and stay in our self-centered felt needs. And within the organization, we also tend to resist sacrificial and servant-living because of the desire to be recognized by others as being successful (large crowds, bigger buildings, brand-name recognition, etc….).

This morning I was sent a link to this interview of Dallas Willard entitled How Do we Assess Spiritual Growth? In this interview he was asked, “How can churches know if they are being effective at making disciples?”

His response:

Many churches are measuring the wrong things. We measure things like attendance and giving, but we should be looking at more fundamental things like anger, contempt, honesty, and the degree to which people are under the thumb of their lusts. Those things can be counted, but not as easily as offerings.

I love his response. And this shift of attention in what we measure should influence how we look for leaders and disciple-makers, we ought to be looking for those who exude the attitudes of Christ (humility, kindness, love, desire to serve…), rather than just those who meet the requirements for involvement.

This focus on measuring the wrong aspects of faith has led us into the spiritual and relational poverty within our individualistic culture of today. It breeds a lack the biblical understanding of God’s vision for the faith-community and God’s ultimate purposes for His Kingdom.

At the end of the interview Willard is asked, “What can pastors do to change this dynamic?”

Change their definition of success. They need to have a vision of success rooted in spiritual terms, determined by the vitality of a pastor’s own spiritual life and his capacity to pass that on to others.

When pastors don’t have rich spiritual lives with Christ, they become victimized by other models of success—models conveyed to them by their training, by their experience in the church, or just by our culture. They begin to think their job is managing a set of ministry activities and success is about getting more people to engage those activities. Pastors, and those they lead, need to be set free from that belief.

Great thoughts from Mr. Willard.

A spiritually minded man will never come to you with the demand – “Believe this and that;” but with the demand that you square your life with the standards of Jesus. We are not asked to believe the Bible, but to believe the One Whom the Bible reveals (cf. John 5:39-40). We are called to present liberty of conscience, not liberty of view. If we are free with the liberty of Christ, others will be brought into that same liberty – the liberty of realizing the dominance of Jesus Christ.

Always keep your life measured by the standards of Jesus. Bow your neck to His yoke alone, and to no other yoke whatever; and be careful to see that you never bind a yoke on others that is not placed by Jesus Christ. It takes God a long time to get us out of the way of thinking that unless everyone sees as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God’s view. There is only one liberty, the liberty of Jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right.

Don’t get impatient, remember how God dealt with you – with patience and with gentleness; but never water down the truth of God. Let it have its way and never apologize for it. Jesus said, “Go and make disciples,” not “make converts to your opinions.”

I have read it again and again…and it never gets old. In our social culture and in the changing church culture of today…this is a message needing to be heeded. This thing called “church” is not about us or our ways and traditions. It is about Him…and His way…the way of love.

If and when we find ourselves struggling against the changing moves of the Spirit, we need to quickly refocus ourselves back onto Him.

It’s His time, and His way.