Sharing Life

Every time I read 1 Thessalonians 2:8 I think of my Rwandan friends.  It says, “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.”  That’s exactly how I feel about Rwandans.  I came here for the first time, about 5 years ago, thinking I would share the gospel with the Rwandans.  Little did I know then how much they would come to mean so much to me and how dear they would come to me.

I love to walk down the street and say ‘muraho’ to the folks walking, to see their faces light up as they return my greeting.  I love walking through the marketplace and bartering with them to get the best deal, but more importantly to strike up conversations that end up with big smiles and happy times.  I love to see them in church and give and receive hugs that are so warm and friendly.

Now, I still look forward to coming to Rwanda to share the gospel of Jesus but there is a deep desire in me to share life with them, because they have become so dear to me.

Every time I read 1 Thessalonians I think of my Rwandan friends.  It says, “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.”  That’s exactly how I feel about Rwandans.  I came here for the first time, about 5 years ago, thinking I would share the gospel with the Rwandans.  Little did I know then how much they would come to mean so much to me and how dear they would come to me.
I love to walk down the street and say ‘muraho’ to the folks walking, to see their faces light up as they return my greeting.  I love walking through the marketplace and bartering with them to get the best deal, but more importantly to strike up conversations that end up with big smiles and happy times.  I love to see them in church and give and receive hugs that are so warm and friendly.
Now, I still look forward to coming to Rwanda to share the gospel of Jesus but there is a deep desire in me to share life with them, because they have become so dear to me.

Sunrise over the Red Sea

I saw one of the most beautiful things imaginable this morning.  I was on a plane flying South from Rome, Italy to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and it was time for sunrise.  I was on the Eastern side of the plane and there it was, the most indescribable, most fascinating, most breath taking sunrise I have ever seen coming up over the Red Sea.

Many on the plane were trying to take pictures through the window but I knew a picture couldn’t do it justice.  It was way to magnificent for that.  I was awestruck as I just sat and looked agape at God’s wonder.  He truly is amazing, you know!  I wanted to immediately get my computer and write this blog but now I find myself at a loss for words.  It was that incredible!

As I was watching, I thought of the song “God of Wonders” and remembered I had it, sung by Rebecca St. James, on my iPod.  I had to get my iPod, scroll to the song and play it while I watched this sunrise.  The words to the song, the beauty of the sunrise caused a huge well of emotion rise up in me and I had a hard time keeping my teardrops in my eyes.

Lord of all creation

Of water, earth and sky

The heavens are Your tabernacle

Glory to the Lord on high

Early in the morning

I will celebrate the light

When I stumble in the darkness

I will lift Your name by night

God of wonders beyond our galaxy

You are holy, holy

The universe declares You majesty

You are holy, holy

Lord of heaven and earth

Hallelujah to the Lord of heaven and earth

Hallelujah to the Lord of heaven and earth

I’m awestruck and then it dawned on me – My Father can do that every day!

He is Holy!

Daily Bread

I was thinking and reading about God’s daily bread yesterday.  I read the story in the book of Exodus about God’s provision of manna for the Israelites.  He provided manna for them every day (there was a sabbath exception) for forty years.  My thinking, this time, was about how God provided for the Israelites daily; He didn’t dump forty year’s worth of manna on them or even one week’s worth of manna on them at a time.  He provided manna for them daily.

Knowing the Israelites, they would soon forget their dependence on God if He were to give them a lifetime supply of manna all at once.  It would be so easy for them to think they’re all set with manna for their lives and that they really didn’t need God any more after all.  They were prone to forget about what God had done for them rather quickly.  But, God saw fit to give them manna every day.  He knew that they needed provision but He also knew that they needed it daily so He provided daily.

God meets our needs today.  He may not meet them with a big retirement account or by giving us all we need for a lifetime, but He provides by giving us enough for today.  Remember, if we have enough for today, then we are taken care of.  We don’t need to be ‘set for life’ as they say before we are taken care of.  We pray so often for God to ‘give us this day our daily bread’ but we expect Him to ‘give us this day all the provisions we will need for a lifetime’.

God provides.  He tells us not to be anxious about about anything even as He provides our daily bread.  Our job, then, is to be content with His daily bread.

Faith and Risk

I read a tweet by Mark Batterson the other day that said something like, “faith isn’t just hoping and believing for success, it’s daring to fail”.  It seems that faith includes risk.  I was reading the account in Luke this morning of the lady who gave her last coins into the temple offering while all the rich people were putting their offerings into the plate.  Jesus commented that “all these people gave out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put all she had to live on.”

This lady was risking it!  She had faith that God would take care of her because of her obedience and she put her faith to the test by risking what God was asking her to risk.  What are we willing to risk on account of our faith?  Is God calling us out of our safe, easy life and do something of eternal significance?  Is He calling us to be a mentor for a kid who is having a hard time and has no one to walk alongside?  Is He calling us to love the unlovely like the tax collectors or the woman at the well from Jesus’ time on earth?  Different people have different calls to risk but we can all be assured that none of these calls will be safe ones.

As I look at 2010, I want to look at it a little differently than I have looked at new years in the past.  I want to look at it in the light of ‘what does God want me to risk in 2010?’  What does He have in store for me that is outside my safety zone?  What amazing blessing, beyond my wildest imagination, does He have in store for me as I GO in His Grace and in Obedience?  I don’t know what He’s got in store, but I’m willing to take the risk and I’m anxious to see how He leads me!

Primal

I had the opportunity to get a pre-release of the first book you should read in 2010.  I got to read ‘Primal’ by Mark Batterson.  He is the author that brought us the book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day.  Primal takes us back to find the lost soul of Christianity.  In the book, Batterson takes us through the heart, soul, mind, and strength of Christianity and shows us some of the ways we have lost the truth of Christianity by dreaming small dreams, by being selfish with our possessions, and by trying to be Christians on our own, without the power and vision of the Holy Spirit leading us.

He challenged me with several ideas, some of them I have heard before so they are a refresher challenge for me and some I have not heard before.  First, he challenged me with this question: “Does your heart break for the things that break the heart of God?”  This question convicted Batterson when he first heard it and it convicts me every time I hear it.  It seems that time and comfort drive us away from this question and it’s always good to revisit it.

Primal

He challenged me with his ideas on having an income cap; sort of a level where my income is ‘enough’ and I don’t need to make more.  Hence, if I do make more I can know where the cap is and give away everything that is above it.  I haven’t had time to think this one through yet to determine what my cap should be nor have I discussed with my wife yet, but it’s great food for thought and I believe it will become a way of life for Kathy and I as we look at 2010 and beyond.

Batterson wants to bring Christianity back to the point where we love God with all of our hearts, our souls, our minds, and our strength.  He shows us how we have steered away from these things and gives us food for thought about how we can return to this type of love.  We do not return to this type of love without making some primal changes to our lives but he paints a picture of how our lives will be so much richer if we can just make that return.

Remember

In the book of Colossians, Paul was enumerating a list of common sins that all of us are familiar with.  When he finishes listing these sins, he adds a little sentence that seems easy to overlook.  He says, in Colossians 3:7; “You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.”  I believe this sentence calls us to remember where we came from and exhorts us to get over the “righteousness” that we credit to ourselves when we come to Jesus.  We tend to get all “righteous” and judgmental about those who are doing the things that we used to do.  Thank God that the ones who came to us, to lead us to Jesus, weren’t so judgmental when they came to us.  All of us who consider ourselves followers of Jesus must overcome the urge to be so judgmental so that we can see others with the eyes of love that Jesus does.

I used to have a t-shirt that said, “I’m the wretch the song refers to” and I loved that shirt.  (It finally fell apart so I’m looking for another one!)  It reminded me of God’s grace and of the fact that His grace is the only difference between me being in fellowship with Him and me being a wretch.  The truth is that God’s grace is big enough for all of us.  There are none that are too far gone; God loves the wretches like me and wants to bring us all back into relationship with Him.

As the church, the living Body of Christ, let’s start walking this out.  Let’s see others through Jesus’ eyes.  Let’s see others as those who God wants to be in relationship with, just like us!

Wisdom

Romans 15:4 says, “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of scriptures we might have hope.”  Paul was talking to the Romans here about the weak and the strong without puffing up the strong or discouraging the weak.  We are all here to lift each other up, to edify each other, whether weak or strong.  So, to do this we can all learn from the lessons taught by those who have come before us.  There is great wisdom in this.  Its foolish for us to ignore the wisdom of scripture and the wisdom of those who have walked the path ahead of us just so we can make the same mistakes that have already been made.  After all, the people who lived out scripture or have walked before us have already made our mistakes for us; we just need to learn from therm and not repeat them.

Did you ever watch Charlie Brown when he was trying to kick the football from Lucy’s hold?  She always pulled it out from under him; time after time.  But, in this case, Charlie wouldn’t learn from the lessons of the past, he just continued to try and kick that football from Lucy’s hold and end up on his posterior because she would move the ball before he kicked it.  I think it was Einstein who said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Learning the hard way

That’s what happens when we ignore the wisdom of scripture and of those who have walked a little further along the path than we have.  We just keep trying to kick that football and keep ending up on our posteriors.  We try to do the same things and expect different results.  The lessons of the past are our teachers.  The lessons taught in scripture is our teacher.  I hope I can continue to learn from scripture and from those who are further down the path that I am so I can minimize the mistakes that I’ll be making.

The Great Pumpkin

I saw the Charlie Brown episode about the Great Pumpkin over the last week.  It’s been a favorite of mine since I was just a kid.  I would always get annoyed with Linus, though, because he’d waste all that prime candy gathering time waiting in the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin.  The Great Pumpkin never came!

 

Linus keeps reminding us, throughout the whole episode, of how sincere he is.  He knows that if his sincere belief in the Great Pumpkin will insure a visit from him.  Linus puts all his hope in his sincerity.  Then, toward the end of the episode, he has a slip of the tongue and says something about “if” the Great Pumpkin comes.  This slip of the tongue; the admittance that he’s not absolutely sure the Great Pumpkin comes, ends his hopes of a visit.  The truth is that there is no Great Pumpkin, regardless of the level or Linus’ sincerity.  His sincere belief is groundless and empty so we see his disappointment at the end of the episode.

Many people, I think, are like that.  We believe that sincerity is the key.  It’s almost as if we place our hope in our sincerity.  If we sincerely believe there is a ‘higher power’, then we are all set.  The truth is, though, that sincerely believing in something besides the truth of the gospel of Jesus will only make us sincerely wrong.  We are all, at one level or another, searching for true truth and our sincere belief in anything less than the true truth of the God of the Bible will only leave us empty; regardless of the sincerity we put in our belief.

The call

Mark 4:35-41 always encourages me to take a fresh look at life and at what God has called me to.  The story starts with Jesus’ disciples sailing across the Sea of Galilee, a lake really, and a storm coming up.  Jesus was asleep in the bow of the boat so the disciples woke him up to calm the storm.

But, did you notice what Jesus said before they ever set sail and before there was a storm?  He said, “Let us go over to the other side.”  Jesus set the course to go to the other side of the lake.  His call on the disciples was to take him there.

Jesus didn’t say, “Let us try to go over to the other side.”  He didn’t say, “Let’s hope we can make it over to the other side.”  He sure didn’t say, “Let’s go out in the lake and get swamped by a storm and die.”  He told the disciples they were going to the other side of the lake.  Maybe that’s why Jesus was comfortable enough to sleep during the storm.  He was comfortable with the calling he had on the disciples to get to the other side.

How many of us forget that Jesus calls us to the other side of the lake?  We forget that he doesn’t call us to fail; he calls us and equips us to succeed!  I need to remember that all the time; maybe you do too.  He’s called us to go to the other side of the lake, through any storms that might arise.  He’s comfortable with that calling so maybe we think he’s forgotten us and he’s fallen asleep.  The truth is though, that we need to walk in his calling on us and not fear the storms.

Make the path easy

There is a verse in Acts that grabs my attention every time I read through the book.  Paul, Barnabas, James, and others are discussing the gospel to the gentiles and about what the gentiles need to do in order to follow Jesus and be a part of their church.  In verse 19 James says, “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.”

It seems like many of us, at one time or another, want to make it difficult for people to come to God.  It seems that we all want people to clean up before coming to Him.  We expect them to beat their drinking problem and then come to Jesus.  We expect them to kick their drug habit and then find God.  We expect them to end their live-in relationships before coming to the Lord.  We forget, I think, where we were when we came to Him.  We forget that He loved us, accepted us, and forgave us right where we were.  God wants us to come to Him; just as we are, so that He can do the work that He wants to do in our lives.

I need to remember these things as I’m out and around and seeing people who haven’t come to Him.  He wants them to come just as they are.  He wanted me to come to Him, regardless of the mess I had made of my life.  He welcomes people just as they are – but He loves us too much to leave us just as we are.  He changes our hearts and transforms our minds into what He has planned for us.

I want to make it easy for others to turn to God.