This post is part of a dialogue at Jollyblogger which began at Glenn Lucke of Common Grounds and continues at Bolgblog.
Update: more on the subject here
Here is my take on this important topic:
How to show other poor beggars how to find bread?
When we think of apologetics, as Christians, we often think of the academic and intellectual method of making convincing arguments for the reality of Jesus and the existence of God. I find that this method is not very effective at least it is not effective for me.
In fact, I believe this method gets the proverbial cart before the horse. The intellectual method tries to have a person be able to explain a faith that they have no experience of. It is like trying to get a person to explain the physics of a double back flip when they don’t know how to do a summersault. Being able to explain the physics of a double back flip is nice and all but it has very little to do with actual gymnastics. So too understanding a philosophical or evidential argument for the existence of God and the validity of a belief in miracles like the resurrection is pretty advanced explanation for someone who probably doesn’t even understand how to be nice to his children or how to nurture and love his spouse or control his sexuality or whatever the case.
There is in fact a much better way to lead someone into the kingdom of God. Imagine you are talking to someone. It could be anyone. When speaking to this person, attempt to discern his spiritual health. We are like doctors. Ask a few questions that could diagnose his spiritual health? “Are you married?” “Are you happily married?” People complain a lot. When they complain, it is easy to say. “What do you think is the best response to this problem?” Or “Are you stressed?” If at this point I can share that I too used to have this same problem, then we might just have an opportunity.
Personally, my favorite topic is marriage. Jesus has taught me how to do marriage really well. I cannot imagine anyone being happier than I am in marriage. In the world around us, sixty percent of all marriages fail. We, therefore, look for opportunities to help heal a marriage by addressing spiritual problems!! If I apply simple spiritual principles like forgiveness or meekness and help heal a man's marriage, I will have far more authority in that person’s life than if I know the cosmological argument.
Jesus Heals Anonymously
Here is a great key!! The blind man in John 5 had to go back to Jesus and ask Him His name after the healing. We can heal a persons body or soul through the power of Jesus and the person's relationship with Jesus can grow as a result. A clear mind with respect to seeing and knowing God is often the result of having our soul cleansed along spiritual lines. By spiritual lines I mean with respect to love and forgiveness and mercy. As a person learns the ways of Christ, this purity leads to seeing and knowing God. A sick spirit will be confused theologically. Attempts to argue theology with a person who is spiritually sick is crazy making. First get the person to take the log out of their eye and then they will see clearly.
The Pure in Heart shall see God
Often a person may have a very marginal and nominal faith, but as he or she becomes more spiritually healthy and begins to fall in love with the word of God, forgiveness and love, he will begin to get more sober minded with respect to his worldview. This method is looking to minister to a person’s spirit and to nurse them to spiritual health as the means to changing their minds. It is rather simple for a person who is finding restoration of their lives to see that the source of their healing is the Savior of the world. Isn’t this what Jesus did? He healed and then he revealed.
In my own life a few years back, I was driven out of my work in an ambulance. I was complaining of chest pains. It turns out that this was the result of stress. At the time, I had one job and five kids but I had put myself under a lot of pressure. Today my life is totally different. My circumstances aren’t any different. I still work at the same job. In fact, I have since then began to also pastor a church. I now have six kids. In many ways, my life is far more busy, but in all this I am far less stressful. In fact my testimony now is that I have found the path to peace. I have a testimony.
Peace for a Stressed Out World
If anything characterizes our world, it is busy and stressed out. If we are walking in the kingdom, then we possess in our daily lives “righteousness, peace and joy in the holy spirit”. Of course, we must learn the principles of Jesus to learn how to enter the kingdom in such a way as to have an authentic testimony. But the point is we, if we know how to do it, can lead people into a life of victory over stress. No one on the planet can do this better than a follower of Jesus Christ. Each one of us has a different calling. Jesus has given us victory over different difficulties. Some can share the path to victory over anger with the guy next door. Some can share about how to control the tongue or how to control our thought life or how to find victory over depression. Find someone who has a common problem and share with them the path to victory. We are all just beggars showing beggars where to find bread. Feed them and they will come to know the one who is the bread of life.
God Bless,
brad
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
The Importance of Taking Action
Often when I begin teaching, I begin with the following questions:
Who is discipling you?
Who are you discipling?
What method of discipleship do you use?
How do you pray? (what method of prayer do you practice and teach others?)
But, lately, I am learning that the most important question of these four, for me and I think for all of us, is the first. "Who is discipling us?
Who is discpling me is of first importancce because it is far easier to know and understand our spiritual program and what steps a person needs to take to grow in their relationship with God than it is to actually do it ourselves. The biggest hinderance to spiritual growth is the difficulty of taking action. Our lethergy has inertia, and we often need a coach to encourage us to take even the simplest actions. Just like any coaching relationship, the program is coaching by assignment, and it is vital, life or death, that we do certain assignments if we are to overcome our lethargy and in turn spiritually grow.
For example, Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount the following:
Matt 7:7"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! 12"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Follow the logic of this passage. Jesus says God is a generous giver. The father knows what you need, and he provides. Even evil people provide for their kids, therefore…..therefore what???
Therefore, “whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also for them”. But, I thought Jesus was teaching on prayer. Shouldn’t it say..therefore, keep asking and keep seeking, like so many people preach. Focus on your needs and pray for what you need, and God will give it to you. No!!!! That is not the message. The message is, "therefore, know that your needs are taken care of and instead turn your eyes to the needs of others." DO TO OTHERS what you need, and God will provide.
Because God is a good Father and fathers look after the needs of their kids, you are now free to simply ask for your needs to be met and then FOCUS ON THE NEEDS OF OTHERS.
Another possible way to say it is because God is focused on your needs, you can focus on the needs of others. This principle is completely liberating IF IT IS ACTED UPON!!!!
This otherly focus is a total revolution and a totally new orientation toward life. The results are unexpected. We focus on the needs of others and actually experience the freedom of knowing our needs are cared for. Hmmm??? That makes no logical sense. Yes, I don't really care to explain how it works. All that matters is that it does work.
Lets say we are down and feeling a little needy. What is the answer?? Call someone in need and serve them. Do unto others as you would like done unto you!! This fool has tried it thousands of times, and I have never found Jesus’ teaching to fail me.
Taking action is the key to our spiritual growth. It is not important to really understand how it works. The kingdom is like a farmer who sows seed and whether it is day or night somehow the seed sprouts. How it works he does not know. It seems the soil produces fruit of its own, but when the harvest comes he reaps the harvest.
That is exactly what I have found to be true. We must take action whether it makes sense or not and just trust the commandments of Jesus. He who practices and teaches other these commands will be great in the kingdom.
So find someone and ask them to help you out of your spiritual lethargy. Spritual change comes from taking action. Find a friend to coach you and push you, like a coach, to take action. Find someone in need. Go to the highways and byways if need be and begin to take action. You will find that before you are half way through the process, you will be amazed at the results. So, get a coach, and reap a harvest of peace and joy.
God Bless,
brad
Who is discipling you?
Who are you discipling?
What method of discipleship do you use?
How do you pray? (what method of prayer do you practice and teach others?)
But, lately, I am learning that the most important question of these four, for me and I think for all of us, is the first. "Who is discipling us?
Who is discpling me is of first importancce because it is far easier to know and understand our spiritual program and what steps a person needs to take to grow in their relationship with God than it is to actually do it ourselves. The biggest hinderance to spiritual growth is the difficulty of taking action. Our lethergy has inertia, and we often need a coach to encourage us to take even the simplest actions. Just like any coaching relationship, the program is coaching by assignment, and it is vital, life or death, that we do certain assignments if we are to overcome our lethargy and in turn spiritually grow.
For example, Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount the following:
Matt 7:7"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! 12"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Follow the logic of this passage. Jesus says God is a generous giver. The father knows what you need, and he provides. Even evil people provide for their kids, therefore…..therefore what???
Therefore, “whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also for them”. But, I thought Jesus was teaching on prayer. Shouldn’t it say..therefore, keep asking and keep seeking, like so many people preach. Focus on your needs and pray for what you need, and God will give it to you. No!!!! That is not the message. The message is, "therefore, know that your needs are taken care of and instead turn your eyes to the needs of others." DO TO OTHERS what you need, and God will provide.
Because God is a good Father and fathers look after the needs of their kids, you are now free to simply ask for your needs to be met and then FOCUS ON THE NEEDS OF OTHERS.
Another possible way to say it is because God is focused on your needs, you can focus on the needs of others. This principle is completely liberating IF IT IS ACTED UPON!!!!
This otherly focus is a total revolution and a totally new orientation toward life. The results are unexpected. We focus on the needs of others and actually experience the freedom of knowing our needs are cared for. Hmmm??? That makes no logical sense. Yes, I don't really care to explain how it works. All that matters is that it does work.
Lets say we are down and feeling a little needy. What is the answer?? Call someone in need and serve them. Do unto others as you would like done unto you!! This fool has tried it thousands of times, and I have never found Jesus’ teaching to fail me.
Taking action is the key to our spiritual growth. It is not important to really understand how it works. The kingdom is like a farmer who sows seed and whether it is day or night somehow the seed sprouts. How it works he does not know. It seems the soil produces fruit of its own, but when the harvest comes he reaps the harvest.
That is exactly what I have found to be true. We must take action whether it makes sense or not and just trust the commandments of Jesus. He who practices and teaches other these commands will be great in the kingdom.
So find someone and ask them to help you out of your spiritual lethargy. Spritual change comes from taking action. Find a friend to coach you and push you, like a coach, to take action. Find someone in need. Go to the highways and byways if need be and begin to take action. You will find that before you are half way through the process, you will be amazed at the results. So, get a coach, and reap a harvest of peace and joy.
God Bless,
brad
Friday, August 12, 2005
Discipleship 101 – A Practical Guide to Entering a Truly Heavenly Quality of Life
NOTE: This is the first big post I have written in awhile. This post I think is the first good post I have written in awhile as well. It is very long, but I encourage people to read the whole thing and even print it out. I will possibly not post again for a while as this post says everything I have been trying to say for the last few months. To hear the sermons that preceded this post and that make up this post please see our church's sermon page.
God Bless, brad
Discipleship 101 – A Practical Guide to Entering a Truly Heavenly Quality of Life
How it Works
The Sermon on the Mount maps out Jesus’ spiritual principles for entering a truly heavenly quality of life. Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection makes access to spiritual power possible for all who believe. Discipleship is the path to abide in that power. This power comes in the form of a relationship with God and an awareness of His care for us. This relationship with the God of perfect love drives out all fear and all the evil that comes as a result of our fear-based living.
Without conscious relationship with God, we are constantly anxious relatively speaking. This natural alienation from God leads to such a spiritual poverty that we can’t live morally beautiful lives. Therefore, the entire end of Jesus’ spiritual program is to learn how to remain in conscious contact with God. The discipleship program gets us back into experiencing the Fatherhood of God. The fruit of this relationship is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control, etc.
For example, Jesus asks us to turn the other cheek. Maybe we can do this for awhile, but we just can’t take the pressure of life and, eventually, we gossip or slander somebody. The source of the slander or gossip is a lack of peace. Intimacy with God brings the peace that really makes the turning the other cheek process rather simple and not at all impossible. Apart from God though, it is totally impossible, and anyone who has actually tried to be holy and miserable at the same time knows it is completely futile. This tendency to lose our emotional sobriety is what we are really powerless over.
Before you begin find a person who can be for you a faithful set of eyes. It is best to find a person who has himself implemented this spiritual program. If this process is somewhat new to you and your faith community, have no fear. Find a friend anyway and may the Lord bless you.
Blessed are the Poor in Spirit and Blessed are those who Mourn – Powerlessness and Faith
Jesus begins His introduction to the “how to enter the kingdom sermon” by saying “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. The doorway into the kingdom, or a heavenly quality of life, is to come face to face with your spiritual poverty. The one whose life has become really unmanageable and who is miserable to the point of mourning has a huge advantage. The poor miserable mourner, who realizes that he or she will never change and feels totally hopeless, has a great advantage when it comes to spirituality. For those of us who are “stuck in a moment and we can’t get out of it” have two options: 1) die miserable or 2) seek the kingdom for a solution to our powerlessness. This is what poor in spirit means. Someone who realizes that spiritually or morally they are totally bankrupt and that there is no way out is called “poor in spirit” or one who “mourns”.
But what about us who aren’t quite that messed up? What do we do? The answer is raise your standard and your expectation. Paul says "not that I have reached my goal but I press onto the goal (perfection) to which I was called". Paul was a pretty together guy and very spiritually mature when he wrote those words, but his goal was so high he still said "therefore, I put no confidence in the flesh but seek a righteousness that comes through faith". In other words, he sought a righteousness that was so high it could only be attained through the power of an abiding awareness of God and His power. So he says he seeks "to know God and to have fellowship with His sufferings and to know the power of His resurrection". Through our spiritual program of discipleship, we passionately pursue a perfection that only intimacy with God and fellowship with the cross of Christ can give us.
Jesus says it this way, "Your righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees", and, if that doesn’t get us, He says "be perfect (in unconditional love) as your heavenly Father is perfect". This passionate pursuit of perfection what it means to "hunger and thirst for righteousness". All this is intended to drive us into a need for a quality of life that only God can give us. So no matter where we are, we all are poor in spirit if we set our standard high enough.
The Big Principle – Meekness
If we are seeking a new quality of life, we must totally change our approach to life. If we are truly spiritually poor, it should not be hard to realize that our approach to life wasn’t working. It is time to change our mind about how life works and how happiness works. Here is the big principle that Jesus’ program rests on "it is the meek that inherit the earth”. Meekness, meekness, meekness, meekness, meekness. That is what Jesus discipleship program is all about. Total death to self is the path upon which He leads us. The meekness step is a killer!!! The meekness step is a step we will take every day if we are to remain in conscious contact with God. Meekness as the key to Godliness is Jesus’ ethic of death and the cross.
Here is a huge key. You are not meek. Meekness is to cease fighting for self and to completely cease all manipulation and control. Cease trying to change the world around you to conform to your plan. Human nature, as it is lived out in the real world, is driven by two principles: pride and fear. Pride is the foolish belief that your way is right. "I know what is best and every body else ought to listen to me". Another more humble type of pride is called self-pity. Self pity says "the world has wronged me and it just isn’t fair. Please treat me better or I will get depressed". This is just a passive way to tell the world to change. Whatever your form of pride is it isn’t meekness. The human condition is simply such that sooner or later, we come to realize that we are self-centered. Meekness is the opposite of being self-centered. Meekness is allowing the world to be the way it is and not playing all the games we play to try and change people. We must learn to be absolutely tolerant before we can learn to love. Just an aside. Love isn’t passive like meekness, but any true love most first learn to be meek. Meekness is death to self; love is the positive life of God. If we mere mortals are to be filled with God’s love, we must first die to all the selfish and self-protecting impulses of our ego. This total death and this ceasing to fight all people and all things is meekness.
So we take this step. Having come to realize that we need spiritual power, we change our mind with respect to how we are going to approach life. We place before us a vision to be meek. But meekness is not just death to self. True Kingdom meekness is to exchange our self-centeredness for God-centeredness. So instead of having no will at all, we do two things, we lay aside all self-will and we turn our lives and wills over to the care of God. True, we will no longer constantly fight for ourselves, but that doesn’t mean we will live our lives uncared for. Someone has to care for me, and that someone is God the Father. The meek person isn’t needy and clingy. The meek person is the person who can say, "even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Hmm how do you do that?? "For thou art with me!!!". God has my back. That is the power that enables us to be meek.
Now here is the problem…I am not meek. This step is not becoming meek. This step is accepting meekness as the new principle that will guide our lives. We do not make a decision and all of a sudden become meek. We are completely powerless to become meek, for we are not naturally meek. What we are doing is changing our mind about meekness. I make a decision to change my whole approach to life. I will cease fighting, and I will trust in God to fight all my battles. Now the entire rest of the life of the disciple and our spiritual program is to become, through the grace of God, more consciously aware that “thou art with me” so I can fear no evil and live in peace and meekness.
So how does Jesus teach us to become filled with this peace that surpasses understanding? How does Jesus empowers us to face the lions and to take up our cross and live a life no longer seeking our will but God’s will? How can we become God-centered and servants of the Love of God? Well, the first answer is "mercy".
Blessed are the Merciful for they shall receive mercy. – Moral Inventory
The real meat of the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is about being merciful. Do not injure other people!! Do not say “you fool”. Do not say return evil for evil. Do not resist an evil person. Turn the other cheek. Go the extra mile. Forgive, forgive, forgive. “How often?”, we all ask. Well, how about this option. Set a 490 person cushion. Begin your day by giving 490 people the permission to sin against you, and you will show then mercy. Then, when they sin against you, you just say, “Oh yeah, I gave him permission to do that”. But, to actually be able to do this, we first must have God must work on us.
To become merciful, we must let God remove all the anger in our whole being that is stored up in our heads from our whole life.
If we are to live in God’s love, we have to get rid of all anger that is in us. This residual anger is called resentments. To do this step, I suggest taking action. We must be very intentional about getting rid of our anger. Jesus is pretty clear on this matter of forgiveness. In the parable of the unforgiving servant, Jesus gives an example of a man who after having been forgiven remembers that other people owe him. So, he goes out and demands justice. In this case, it is some money. The point is that back in this man’s past there were people who had debts to him. To this fact which is part of human life, Jesus says, “Forgive all your debtors”. PERIOD. This step is discipleship 101. In other words, go through every resentment in your life and forgive them. Forgive them and in fact bless them. Bless them that hurt you and then you will be called sons and daughters of God.
The only way to be filled with the love of God is to rid our lives of all anger, resentments and unforgiveness of any kind. It is best to be very thorough about this step. In fact, as you go through this process practice de-escalating the conflict by finding where in this relationship you might have had some wrong. For example, I have a resentment because that guy broke my lawn mower and never paid me back. I forgive him and I bless him. In fact, I realize the only reason I have a resentment is because of greed. If I had no greed at all, then I would never have been upset about the lawn mower.
HUGE KEY HERE!!! This process is not about figuring out why you are a depressed or angry person or why you have fears or why you are greedy and feel the compulsion to worry about finances. Saying to yourself,
“What a great insight. I am fearful because I was raised poor and my parents never had any money, and, so, I fear poverty. For this reason, I am more prone than most to worrying about money. Therefore, I have a hard time forgiving people who don’t pay me back. I panic because such a threat triggers me”.
This type of thinking may be entirely true, but it is worthless to help you become more merciful. Avoid like the plague being too intellectual and trying to figure out why you are the way you are. The fact of the matter is we are self-centered, and each of us has a story of how our self-centeredness came to fruition. The story is interesting and is an important part of sharing our story, but knowing why we are the way we are is not the solution. Forgiving and blessing and confessing our faults is the actual solution. It is not what went into us that makes us unclean and in need of house-cleaning. It is what came out of us and out of our hearts that made us unclean. Our spiritual problem is never caused by what happened to us but is caused by our response to it. We responded bad because we lacked the tools to respond in a way that can keep us in a loving and peaceful state of mind. If we were kids and we were horribly hurt, this injustice created in us a warped view of life and a broken response to life. Forgiveness, blessing and confession will heal us. It seems like it shouldn’t work, but sow mercy and you will receive mercy. That is the key to this step.
Blessed are the Pure in Heart for they shall see God
Of all the sayings of Jesus, this one is one of the most precious. This saying of Jesus Christ’s has with it the greatest of all promises. This saying says that if I am cleansed by God of all my impurities, if through confession, my heart is pure before God, then I will come to know God. I will begin to see God in all areas of life. I will become daily and regularly conscious of the presence of God. It is this awareness that God is good all the time and that all the time God is good and that this GOOD GOD is with me that is the power to bear fruit to God’s glory. Jesus said “if you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will bear fruit”. Jesus is saying that if we obey His teachings (take certain steps of discipleship) and we, through these steps abide in relationship with Him, then we will have the fruit of the spirit or be salt and light that is morally distinct.
So far we have dealt with resentments and anger. Now we must deal with the impure lusts of our heart. Again all these lusts and impurities are the result of a self-centered and self-protecting way of life. We may think we are not this way, but relative to Jesus Christ, who lived the example of true authentic humanity, we lacked the God-centered life that can be truly called the kingdom of heaven. So, press onto purity and continue this fearless moral inventory that we began when we looked at our resentments.
Sex
After the paragraph in the Sermon on the Mount that deals directly with anger, Jesus brings up sexual lust. Sex is a great gift from God, but if we allow our sexuality to become a means of satisfying our self or our ego or if we use sex to gain some form of security, then our sexuality is just another form of self-centeredness. Sex is a powerful instinct, and, under the reign of Jesus, it is a doorway into lifelong relationship with a member of the opposite sex. But, under the influence of the self it is just lust.
In the same way that we made a list of all the people we had anger toward, it is important that we come clean in the area of our sexual relations. I suggest making a list of any person in which you used sex to meet a selfish desire. The sanctification of our sexuality is vital to any spiritual program in which we are going to become, in every area of life, an instrument of the Love of God. For men, how have you ever been inconsiderate? Think of this inventory in terms of each sexual act not just each person. Do we treat sex as an appetite to be met? Do we require our spouses to comply to meet our need? Sex is to be the celebration of our covenant love and our lifelong relationship. Is sex all too often divorced from real relationship? Journal and admit how sex has become impure in your life. Again, like all other steps this step is a changing of our minds or a changing of our perspective. Our understanding of sex must change. This sexual inventory step for some will be difficult, but we must be willing to allow God to be the center and the master of every area of our lives.
Money
Of all the topics of the bible that gets the most ink, money ranks number one!!! How we relate to money and how we use money is a spiritual matter. The money issue is central to our spirituality because money is the primary means by which we attempt to find peace and happiness apart from God. Jesus’ teachings are extremely clear with respect to money. All of us compromise these teachings, and, again, we must realize that we seek spiritual progress and not spiritual perfection. We all sin and act selfishly at times. These acts of self-centeredness are not excusable nor should we rationalize our compromises away, but, at the same time, we cannot let our momentary lapses into our old ways overwhelm us with guilt.
Here is Jesus’ spiritual admonition with respect to money. He says, “Do not store up treasures on earth”. He also says “do not seek what you may eat and drink and how you clothe yourself for these things the pagans seek for”. What this means is simple. These sayings mean what they say. Do not store up treasures on earth nor seek after stuff. A simple definition of a treasure is a luxury item. The pursuit of luxury will completely undermine any spiritual program. We are seeking love and meekness. We are seeking to live a life totally dedicated to being helpful to God. What is more helpful to God another pair of spiffy shoes or providing funds for missions work and charity work around the world? If we paused for a minute, then we need to take a moral inventory and journal and ask ourselves a simple question: Is all our money dedicated to the kingdom of God? Do I possess anything that could be considered a luxury item?
Again, this step is a step of both a step of changing our mind and our perspective and a step of action. The aim of this step is to learn to live entirely without worry and fear and to live one day at a time in the service of God.
Jesus tells a parable about how a worldly and unsanctified use of money can undermine the disciple’s saltiness or moral distinction. He says the Kingdom is like a sower that went out to sow seed. He sowed seed on four types of soil. The seed is the message of the kingdom and the availability of a heavenly quality of life that brings glory to the Father. The soil is the heart of those who here the message. Sometimes the seed is sown and the person’s heart is so hard they don’t hear the message at all. Other times the seed is sown in soil that is a mixture of rock hardness under the surface and a thin layer of acceptance. In such cases, the hearer rejoices for a while, but then the call to discipleship becomes too difficult and they fall away. Other times the soil is sown amongst thorns and weeds that choke out the seed, and, though the hearer sticks to the program, the plant that grows never bears any fruit. This is the person who is dedicated to love God BUT this person is deceived by the deceitfulness of money and the worries of this world. This is the person who can surrender to every spiritual principle except he or she cannot let go of their money. Because money is so central to the life of the unbeliever this person’s life has NO MORAL DISTINCTIVENESS and they bear NO FRUIT TO THE GLORY OF GOD.
I suggest that we journal and take moral inventory on this issue of money. If you doubt the power of this step and the role of money in our spiritual walk, I suggest trying something. Jesus gives a direct example of something to do to learn how to get delivered from the deceptiveness of money. He tells us to practice giving charity in secret. Try this! Regularly do the following. Take a significant portion of your financial savings and give it to the poor without letting anyone know about it (except maybe your spouse). Do this on a regular basis, and see if this helps you learn a new perspective on the role of money in your walk with God. I guarantee you that as you begin this practice that you will begin to worry less about money, and you will come to know less fear in your life. Consider the lilies of the field. They toil not nor do they worry, yet God cares for them. How much more valuable than lilies are you. So, you, seek first the kingdom and God will care for you.
Confession
Now that you have completed your moral inventory, it is time to experience one of the great blessings of life. The greatest blessing in life is relationship. God is a trinity, and His very nature is that of loving relationship. We, having been made in the image of God, are likewise made for loving relationship. This next step is the sowing of honesty, and it reaps the reward of being able to have intimate relationships. This step is simple. Share all your moral inventory with yourself, God, and another human being.
This step can be said to be a sacramental step. In this step, we have another human being, in total confidence, listen to our confession of all our defects of character. Then, this person accepts us and forgives us and rejoices with us in our spiritual progress. This step is sacramental because this person is giving flesh and blood to how God is responding to our spiritual progress in following Jesus Christ. The kingdom has truly come for us, and we are entering a quality of life that we never thought possible. The world to the natural person seems harsh and violent, and prior to our spiritual awakening we too felt alienated and alone in the world. The world is threatening, and life is difficult. But, now, we enter into a new city whose architect and builder is God, and the glory of the Lord seems to shine all around us. We no longer feel threatened by people nor does life seem to present baffling problems. Instead, we have found shalom or peace. It is in this confession that many of us feel the presence of God for the first time.
So, set a date and a time to get together with your discipler, your spiritual helper, and confess all the darkness that has been in your soul.
Making Amends
At this point, we may find that we have harmed people in our self-centeredness and our discipler or program helper should council us as to whether we need to make amends. Making amends is again an act of kingdom work that can relieve us of the burdens of our past. In time, we will find it easy to live without worries and fears and to, in fact, live in conscious contact with God. In quite a short time we will find that we can truly say we have a heavenly quality of life. Making amends, if needed, is intended to empower us to be completely free from our past and to be empowered to “not worry about tomorrow”. Such freedom is the inheritance of the Christian and we hope you find it. Jesus teaches us to live one day at a time, and making amends can be an important part of that especially if we left behind us a lot of wreckage before we came into the kingdom.
Daily Maintenance
Now, we are to the daily maintenance steps of our discipleship process or program. What we have essentially done is learned, in a thorough manner, the principles of powerlessness, faith, meekness, mercy, and purity of heart. In this process, we have found a quality of life that can only be described as an abiding relationship with the Father. This relationship with God, through the Gospel and the forgiveness and power of Jesus, bears fruit that reveals to those around us that something has changed for the better in our lives. We are seeing that God has begun to grant us power over all the things that used to control us. We have not addressed the problems of our life directly. We have not learned how to say no to specific sins, and yet, we find the overwhelming power of sin is greatly dissipated in our lives. We have not learned how to earn more money or how to be successful in life, and yet, we have an abiding sense of security. Now that we have had an extreme makeover of our live, we must learn how to live in this new realm day by day.
The Lord’s Prayer – The Greatest Tool We Have
Right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches how we ought to pray. This prayer is for me the greatest tool to daily maintain our new approach to life. In my own life, I have had seasons where I completely compromised my principles and let either resentments, the deceitfulness of riches, or other forms of selfishness block the power of God in my life. I say this to help us remember that we must learn a daily maintenance program, or, in time, the ground we have gained can be lost. Praise God there is grace to come back, and we can go through the whole eye-opening, liberating process again. In fact, we may need to do a thorough inventory and confession and make amends every year, BUT it is best to do this on a daily basis.
The purpose of prayer is twofold. First, we learn or practice how to orient ourselves properly toward God and life, and secondly, we consciously ask and receive power so that we can live the vision God has placed before us.
Our fundamental problem in life is that we lack power to live as God created us to live. God has created us to be His body and His instruments of love and peace on earth. We are to expand the rule and reign of Jesus Christ by making disciples of people from every nation. We are to bring God’s power in the gospel to everyone and we are to teach the discipleship program Jesus gave us to other powerless people. To even begin to do this mission, we have to know His saving power and His discipleship program ourselves. To be actually able to live the life, we have to orient ourselves properly before God and life and we need to learn to receive power form God to live out the life of Christ which we are attempting to imitate.
Jesus gave us one of the greatest gifts to our daily happiness in the Lord’s Prayer. Before we start, I would like to say a word about how long I think this prayer should take. Actually, I think it takes less time than I used to think.
My early years as a Christian were developed in a rather hyper-spiritual environment. A parade of “prayer warriors” and “prophets" were presented to the church, and I came to believe that prayer was this heroic feat to be performed by the few that were truly dedicated to God. I embarked on this journey, and, as a single man, I enjoyed a life of total surrender and intimacy with God. I was very fortunate in that I was graced with a love for the teachings of Jesus, and, so I learned great spiritual principles to base my life on. This life was indeed very fulfilling and contains for me some of the greatest memories of my life BUT then I got married.
For the next few years, I longed to get back to that kind of life of prayer. I thought I wasn’t spiritual because I couldn’t pray like I used to. Then I learned a simpler and actually far more effective life of prayer. Now, I would suggest that prayer is not intended to be a big heroic effort. Leave the heroics for the rest of the day. Prayer is actually rather simple. Certainly, at times a day of prayer or extended times of prayer and fasting are quite helpful, but, for our daily life, I think a private and intentional time of focused prayer based on the Lord’s prayer at the beginning and the end of the day of any length is great.
Father Hallowed Be Thy Name
The Lord ’s Prayer opens up with the death blow to self-centeredness. Father, let my life be centered on promoting Your and Your name and not my name. The Lord ’s Prayer then opens with a reminder of the principle of meekness and marries the idea of meekness with its faithful brother in virtue – worship. “Father, you alone are worthy of praise. May your name be hallowed and respected and honored” The flip side to this confession of our God-centered life is that we do not seek respect or honor for ourselves. I suggest not getting into specifics at this place in the prayer but, instead, simply centering our person Godward. Our supreme purpose in life is one - to bring Glory to God.
Your Kingdom Come Your Will Be Done On Earth as it is in Heaven
Here is where I would articulate God’s specific vision for our life. God’s vision for our life is to live the spiritual principles we have learned. So, I suggest praying four basic categories under Your kingdom come: meekness, mercy, purity, and peacemaking. Our purpose is to bring Glory to the name of the Father. Our vision or our tactic is to do this by living according to the principles of the kingdom. These principles represent a way of life entirely contrary to the way of the world and our natural tendencies. If we manifest the fruit of this orientation toward life and God, we will be salt and light that brings Him Glory.
Under the heading of purity, we might add sex, money, and motives. Next, we get to the most important part of the prayer. I say this because this portion addresses our real problem. Our problem is a lack of power.
Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread
The vision we have just stated before God is not a vision of us. We are not naturally meek or merciful or pure. But, there is someone who is. This vision of life describes Jesus Christ. Father, give me Jesus in my heart. The life I long to live can only be found through the power of the Spirit of Jesus. Galations 2:20 is a great verse to pray at this time. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me and the life I live I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me and delivered Himself us for me.”. “God provide for me the true bread that comes down from heaven - Jesus Christ - that He may do for me what I cannot do for myself”.
Under the peacemaking heading, I place any intercession and any relationships in which I am responsible to bring peace. I personally am the father in a large family, and my job is to create “shalom in the home”. “Lord make me a peace-maker in the home and at work and in the church…”.
Forgive us Our Sins as We forgive Those Who have Sinned Against Us
Here we have an opportunity to take a daily moral inventory. This portion is especially good for the evening prayer. Review the day. Ask yourself if you have caused any harm or injury to anyone. Do we need to make amends? If yes, write it down and tell a friend if necessary. Do I have any resentments? Do I need to forgive and bless anyone?
And Lead Us Not into Temptation But deliver Us from Evil
As we turn to face the day or the night as the case may be, we will approach life with confidence and without fear. God is with us. We are the most authentically human people on the planet. We are to be the most free and the most fearless, for God, our Father who is all good all the time, is with us. Nothing can over take us. Even if we wlk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, for He is our good Shepherd. So we pray asking humbly that we might be aware of His presence throughout the day. We pray that we might live through faith in His care and that we do not respond to life in fear as we used to.
So, we pray a simple but thorough God-centered prayer. Our prayers teach us to abide in Jesus' teaching. We are constantly reminded of His teachings to love our enemies and turn the other cheek. We are seeking to daily improve our spiritual life and our spiritual fruit. We know that it is relationship with our loving Father that keeps us from anger and fear and keeps us in perfect peace so that we can live a life of meekness and service to others.
As We Face the Day – Sharing With Others
The bible teaches us that we need to be ready at all times to share with others along the path of life why we are so hopeful and peaceful. Now that we have found a new life and we are seeing God do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, we have a method that we can share with others. The teachings of Jesus come with many promises. The Kingdom of Heaven, a heavenly quality of life, is within reach. If we have laid hold of it, what a great gift to give this peace to other harassed and helpless folk. We were lost once and now we have found a way to live life with God and to abide in Him and His ways. The way is indeed narrow, but it is understandable and doable. It doesn’t take a great theological mind to figure it out. In fact, how Jesus communicates His power to our person is quite a mystery to us, but we do know, from experience, that a power greater than ourselves has come to us in the name of Jesus. God has removed our sins and short-coming and removed our defects of character. How He has done it may be a mystery but that He has done it is plain for all to see.
If we work these steps, they will work for us, and we can share with anyone from any walk of life that, if they believe Jesus and take Him at His word, they too can live a life that is both happy and heavenly. God is no respecter of persons. We do not have to have a certain lineage nor do we need education to find this way of life. All we must be is rigorously honest.
So if we are to be of ultimate use to God and to others, we take these simple spiritual principles in hand and in our heart. We practice them in our daily lives and we share them with anyone who desires to listen.
May God Bless You and May His Kingdom Come and His Will be Done in you and through you and to all your loved ones,
God Bless,
brad
God Bless, brad
Discipleship 101 – A Practical Guide to Entering a Truly Heavenly Quality of Life
How it Works
The Sermon on the Mount maps out Jesus’ spiritual principles for entering a truly heavenly quality of life. Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection makes access to spiritual power possible for all who believe. Discipleship is the path to abide in that power. This power comes in the form of a relationship with God and an awareness of His care for us. This relationship with the God of perfect love drives out all fear and all the evil that comes as a result of our fear-based living.
Without conscious relationship with God, we are constantly anxious relatively speaking. This natural alienation from God leads to such a spiritual poverty that we can’t live morally beautiful lives. Therefore, the entire end of Jesus’ spiritual program is to learn how to remain in conscious contact with God. The discipleship program gets us back into experiencing the Fatherhood of God. The fruit of this relationship is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control, etc.
For example, Jesus asks us to turn the other cheek. Maybe we can do this for awhile, but we just can’t take the pressure of life and, eventually, we gossip or slander somebody. The source of the slander or gossip is a lack of peace. Intimacy with God brings the peace that really makes the turning the other cheek process rather simple and not at all impossible. Apart from God though, it is totally impossible, and anyone who has actually tried to be holy and miserable at the same time knows it is completely futile. This tendency to lose our emotional sobriety is what we are really powerless over.
Before you begin find a person who can be for you a faithful set of eyes. It is best to find a person who has himself implemented this spiritual program. If this process is somewhat new to you and your faith community, have no fear. Find a friend anyway and may the Lord bless you.
Blessed are the Poor in Spirit and Blessed are those who Mourn – Powerlessness and Faith
Jesus begins His introduction to the “how to enter the kingdom sermon” by saying “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. The doorway into the kingdom, or a heavenly quality of life, is to come face to face with your spiritual poverty. The one whose life has become really unmanageable and who is miserable to the point of mourning has a huge advantage. The poor miserable mourner, who realizes that he or she will never change and feels totally hopeless, has a great advantage when it comes to spirituality. For those of us who are “stuck in a moment and we can’t get out of it” have two options: 1) die miserable or 2) seek the kingdom for a solution to our powerlessness. This is what poor in spirit means. Someone who realizes that spiritually or morally they are totally bankrupt and that there is no way out is called “poor in spirit” or one who “mourns”.
But what about us who aren’t quite that messed up? What do we do? The answer is raise your standard and your expectation. Paul says "not that I have reached my goal but I press onto the goal (perfection) to which I was called". Paul was a pretty together guy and very spiritually mature when he wrote those words, but his goal was so high he still said "therefore, I put no confidence in the flesh but seek a righteousness that comes through faith". In other words, he sought a righteousness that was so high it could only be attained through the power of an abiding awareness of God and His power. So he says he seeks "to know God and to have fellowship with His sufferings and to know the power of His resurrection". Through our spiritual program of discipleship, we passionately pursue a perfection that only intimacy with God and fellowship with the cross of Christ can give us.
Jesus says it this way, "Your righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees", and, if that doesn’t get us, He says "be perfect (in unconditional love) as your heavenly Father is perfect". This passionate pursuit of perfection what it means to "hunger and thirst for righteousness". All this is intended to drive us into a need for a quality of life that only God can give us. So no matter where we are, we all are poor in spirit if we set our standard high enough.
The Big Principle – Meekness
If we are seeking a new quality of life, we must totally change our approach to life. If we are truly spiritually poor, it should not be hard to realize that our approach to life wasn’t working. It is time to change our mind about how life works and how happiness works. Here is the big principle that Jesus’ program rests on "it is the meek that inherit the earth”. Meekness, meekness, meekness, meekness, meekness. That is what Jesus discipleship program is all about. Total death to self is the path upon which He leads us. The meekness step is a killer!!! The meekness step is a step we will take every day if we are to remain in conscious contact with God. Meekness as the key to Godliness is Jesus’ ethic of death and the cross.
Here is a huge key. You are not meek. Meekness is to cease fighting for self and to completely cease all manipulation and control. Cease trying to change the world around you to conform to your plan. Human nature, as it is lived out in the real world, is driven by two principles: pride and fear. Pride is the foolish belief that your way is right. "I know what is best and every body else ought to listen to me". Another more humble type of pride is called self-pity. Self pity says "the world has wronged me and it just isn’t fair. Please treat me better or I will get depressed". This is just a passive way to tell the world to change. Whatever your form of pride is it isn’t meekness. The human condition is simply such that sooner or later, we come to realize that we are self-centered. Meekness is the opposite of being self-centered. Meekness is allowing the world to be the way it is and not playing all the games we play to try and change people. We must learn to be absolutely tolerant before we can learn to love. Just an aside. Love isn’t passive like meekness, but any true love most first learn to be meek. Meekness is death to self; love is the positive life of God. If we mere mortals are to be filled with God’s love, we must first die to all the selfish and self-protecting impulses of our ego. This total death and this ceasing to fight all people and all things is meekness.
So we take this step. Having come to realize that we need spiritual power, we change our mind with respect to how we are going to approach life. We place before us a vision to be meek. But meekness is not just death to self. True Kingdom meekness is to exchange our self-centeredness for God-centeredness. So instead of having no will at all, we do two things, we lay aside all self-will and we turn our lives and wills over to the care of God. True, we will no longer constantly fight for ourselves, but that doesn’t mean we will live our lives uncared for. Someone has to care for me, and that someone is God the Father. The meek person isn’t needy and clingy. The meek person is the person who can say, "even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Hmm how do you do that?? "For thou art with me!!!". God has my back. That is the power that enables us to be meek.
Now here is the problem…I am not meek. This step is not becoming meek. This step is accepting meekness as the new principle that will guide our lives. We do not make a decision and all of a sudden become meek. We are completely powerless to become meek, for we are not naturally meek. What we are doing is changing our mind about meekness. I make a decision to change my whole approach to life. I will cease fighting, and I will trust in God to fight all my battles. Now the entire rest of the life of the disciple and our spiritual program is to become, through the grace of God, more consciously aware that “thou art with me” so I can fear no evil and live in peace and meekness.
So how does Jesus teach us to become filled with this peace that surpasses understanding? How does Jesus empowers us to face the lions and to take up our cross and live a life no longer seeking our will but God’s will? How can we become God-centered and servants of the Love of God? Well, the first answer is "mercy".
Blessed are the Merciful for they shall receive mercy. – Moral Inventory
The real meat of the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is about being merciful. Do not injure other people!! Do not say “you fool”. Do not say return evil for evil. Do not resist an evil person. Turn the other cheek. Go the extra mile. Forgive, forgive, forgive. “How often?”, we all ask. Well, how about this option. Set a 490 person cushion. Begin your day by giving 490 people the permission to sin against you, and you will show then mercy. Then, when they sin against you, you just say, “Oh yeah, I gave him permission to do that”. But, to actually be able to do this, we first must have God must work on us.
To become merciful, we must let God remove all the anger in our whole being that is stored up in our heads from our whole life.
If we are to live in God’s love, we have to get rid of all anger that is in us. This residual anger is called resentments. To do this step, I suggest taking action. We must be very intentional about getting rid of our anger. Jesus is pretty clear on this matter of forgiveness. In the parable of the unforgiving servant, Jesus gives an example of a man who after having been forgiven remembers that other people owe him. So, he goes out and demands justice. In this case, it is some money. The point is that back in this man’s past there were people who had debts to him. To this fact which is part of human life, Jesus says, “Forgive all your debtors”. PERIOD. This step is discipleship 101. In other words, go through every resentment in your life and forgive them. Forgive them and in fact bless them. Bless them that hurt you and then you will be called sons and daughters of God.
The only way to be filled with the love of God is to rid our lives of all anger, resentments and unforgiveness of any kind. It is best to be very thorough about this step. In fact, as you go through this process practice de-escalating the conflict by finding where in this relationship you might have had some wrong. For example, I have a resentment because that guy broke my lawn mower and never paid me back. I forgive him and I bless him. In fact, I realize the only reason I have a resentment is because of greed. If I had no greed at all, then I would never have been upset about the lawn mower.
HUGE KEY HERE!!! This process is not about figuring out why you are a depressed or angry person or why you have fears or why you are greedy and feel the compulsion to worry about finances. Saying to yourself,
“What a great insight. I am fearful because I was raised poor and my parents never had any money, and, so, I fear poverty. For this reason, I am more prone than most to worrying about money. Therefore, I have a hard time forgiving people who don’t pay me back. I panic because such a threat triggers me”.
This type of thinking may be entirely true, but it is worthless to help you become more merciful. Avoid like the plague being too intellectual and trying to figure out why you are the way you are. The fact of the matter is we are self-centered, and each of us has a story of how our self-centeredness came to fruition. The story is interesting and is an important part of sharing our story, but knowing why we are the way we are is not the solution. Forgiving and blessing and confessing our faults is the actual solution. It is not what went into us that makes us unclean and in need of house-cleaning. It is what came out of us and out of our hearts that made us unclean. Our spiritual problem is never caused by what happened to us but is caused by our response to it. We responded bad because we lacked the tools to respond in a way that can keep us in a loving and peaceful state of mind. If we were kids and we were horribly hurt, this injustice created in us a warped view of life and a broken response to life. Forgiveness, blessing and confession will heal us. It seems like it shouldn’t work, but sow mercy and you will receive mercy. That is the key to this step.
Blessed are the Pure in Heart for they shall see God
Of all the sayings of Jesus, this one is one of the most precious. This saying of Jesus Christ’s has with it the greatest of all promises. This saying says that if I am cleansed by God of all my impurities, if through confession, my heart is pure before God, then I will come to know God. I will begin to see God in all areas of life. I will become daily and regularly conscious of the presence of God. It is this awareness that God is good all the time and that all the time God is good and that this GOOD GOD is with me that is the power to bear fruit to God’s glory. Jesus said “if you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will bear fruit”. Jesus is saying that if we obey His teachings (take certain steps of discipleship) and we, through these steps abide in relationship with Him, then we will have the fruit of the spirit or be salt and light that is morally distinct.
So far we have dealt with resentments and anger. Now we must deal with the impure lusts of our heart. Again all these lusts and impurities are the result of a self-centered and self-protecting way of life. We may think we are not this way, but relative to Jesus Christ, who lived the example of true authentic humanity, we lacked the God-centered life that can be truly called the kingdom of heaven. So, press onto purity and continue this fearless moral inventory that we began when we looked at our resentments.
Sex
After the paragraph in the Sermon on the Mount that deals directly with anger, Jesus brings up sexual lust. Sex is a great gift from God, but if we allow our sexuality to become a means of satisfying our self or our ego or if we use sex to gain some form of security, then our sexuality is just another form of self-centeredness. Sex is a powerful instinct, and, under the reign of Jesus, it is a doorway into lifelong relationship with a member of the opposite sex. But, under the influence of the self it is just lust.
In the same way that we made a list of all the people we had anger toward, it is important that we come clean in the area of our sexual relations. I suggest making a list of any person in which you used sex to meet a selfish desire. The sanctification of our sexuality is vital to any spiritual program in which we are going to become, in every area of life, an instrument of the Love of God. For men, how have you ever been inconsiderate? Think of this inventory in terms of each sexual act not just each person. Do we treat sex as an appetite to be met? Do we require our spouses to comply to meet our need? Sex is to be the celebration of our covenant love and our lifelong relationship. Is sex all too often divorced from real relationship? Journal and admit how sex has become impure in your life. Again, like all other steps this step is a changing of our minds or a changing of our perspective. Our understanding of sex must change. This sexual inventory step for some will be difficult, but we must be willing to allow God to be the center and the master of every area of our lives.
Money
Of all the topics of the bible that gets the most ink, money ranks number one!!! How we relate to money and how we use money is a spiritual matter. The money issue is central to our spirituality because money is the primary means by which we attempt to find peace and happiness apart from God. Jesus’ teachings are extremely clear with respect to money. All of us compromise these teachings, and, again, we must realize that we seek spiritual progress and not spiritual perfection. We all sin and act selfishly at times. These acts of self-centeredness are not excusable nor should we rationalize our compromises away, but, at the same time, we cannot let our momentary lapses into our old ways overwhelm us with guilt.
Here is Jesus’ spiritual admonition with respect to money. He says, “Do not store up treasures on earth”. He also says “do not seek what you may eat and drink and how you clothe yourself for these things the pagans seek for”. What this means is simple. These sayings mean what they say. Do not store up treasures on earth nor seek after stuff. A simple definition of a treasure is a luxury item. The pursuit of luxury will completely undermine any spiritual program. We are seeking love and meekness. We are seeking to live a life totally dedicated to being helpful to God. What is more helpful to God another pair of spiffy shoes or providing funds for missions work and charity work around the world? If we paused for a minute, then we need to take a moral inventory and journal and ask ourselves a simple question: Is all our money dedicated to the kingdom of God? Do I possess anything that could be considered a luxury item?
Again, this step is a step of both a step of changing our mind and our perspective and a step of action. The aim of this step is to learn to live entirely without worry and fear and to live one day at a time in the service of God.
Jesus tells a parable about how a worldly and unsanctified use of money can undermine the disciple’s saltiness or moral distinction. He says the Kingdom is like a sower that went out to sow seed. He sowed seed on four types of soil. The seed is the message of the kingdom and the availability of a heavenly quality of life that brings glory to the Father. The soil is the heart of those who here the message. Sometimes the seed is sown and the person’s heart is so hard they don’t hear the message at all. Other times the seed is sown in soil that is a mixture of rock hardness under the surface and a thin layer of acceptance. In such cases, the hearer rejoices for a while, but then the call to discipleship becomes too difficult and they fall away. Other times the soil is sown amongst thorns and weeds that choke out the seed, and, though the hearer sticks to the program, the plant that grows never bears any fruit. This is the person who is dedicated to love God BUT this person is deceived by the deceitfulness of money and the worries of this world. This is the person who can surrender to every spiritual principle except he or she cannot let go of their money. Because money is so central to the life of the unbeliever this person’s life has NO MORAL DISTINCTIVENESS and they bear NO FRUIT TO THE GLORY OF GOD.
I suggest that we journal and take moral inventory on this issue of money. If you doubt the power of this step and the role of money in our spiritual walk, I suggest trying something. Jesus gives a direct example of something to do to learn how to get delivered from the deceptiveness of money. He tells us to practice giving charity in secret. Try this! Regularly do the following. Take a significant portion of your financial savings and give it to the poor without letting anyone know about it (except maybe your spouse). Do this on a regular basis, and see if this helps you learn a new perspective on the role of money in your walk with God. I guarantee you that as you begin this practice that you will begin to worry less about money, and you will come to know less fear in your life. Consider the lilies of the field. They toil not nor do they worry, yet God cares for them. How much more valuable than lilies are you. So, you, seek first the kingdom and God will care for you.
Confession
Now that you have completed your moral inventory, it is time to experience one of the great blessings of life. The greatest blessing in life is relationship. God is a trinity, and His very nature is that of loving relationship. We, having been made in the image of God, are likewise made for loving relationship. This next step is the sowing of honesty, and it reaps the reward of being able to have intimate relationships. This step is simple. Share all your moral inventory with yourself, God, and another human being.
This step can be said to be a sacramental step. In this step, we have another human being, in total confidence, listen to our confession of all our defects of character. Then, this person accepts us and forgives us and rejoices with us in our spiritual progress. This step is sacramental because this person is giving flesh and blood to how God is responding to our spiritual progress in following Jesus Christ. The kingdom has truly come for us, and we are entering a quality of life that we never thought possible. The world to the natural person seems harsh and violent, and prior to our spiritual awakening we too felt alienated and alone in the world. The world is threatening, and life is difficult. But, now, we enter into a new city whose architect and builder is God, and the glory of the Lord seems to shine all around us. We no longer feel threatened by people nor does life seem to present baffling problems. Instead, we have found shalom or peace. It is in this confession that many of us feel the presence of God for the first time.
So, set a date and a time to get together with your discipler, your spiritual helper, and confess all the darkness that has been in your soul.
Making Amends
At this point, we may find that we have harmed people in our self-centeredness and our discipler or program helper should council us as to whether we need to make amends. Making amends is again an act of kingdom work that can relieve us of the burdens of our past. In time, we will find it easy to live without worries and fears and to, in fact, live in conscious contact with God. In quite a short time we will find that we can truly say we have a heavenly quality of life. Making amends, if needed, is intended to empower us to be completely free from our past and to be empowered to “not worry about tomorrow”. Such freedom is the inheritance of the Christian and we hope you find it. Jesus teaches us to live one day at a time, and making amends can be an important part of that especially if we left behind us a lot of wreckage before we came into the kingdom.
Daily Maintenance
Now, we are to the daily maintenance steps of our discipleship process or program. What we have essentially done is learned, in a thorough manner, the principles of powerlessness, faith, meekness, mercy, and purity of heart. In this process, we have found a quality of life that can only be described as an abiding relationship with the Father. This relationship with God, through the Gospel and the forgiveness and power of Jesus, bears fruit that reveals to those around us that something has changed for the better in our lives. We are seeing that God has begun to grant us power over all the things that used to control us. We have not addressed the problems of our life directly. We have not learned how to say no to specific sins, and yet, we find the overwhelming power of sin is greatly dissipated in our lives. We have not learned how to earn more money or how to be successful in life, and yet, we have an abiding sense of security. Now that we have had an extreme makeover of our live, we must learn how to live in this new realm day by day.
The Lord’s Prayer – The Greatest Tool We Have
Right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches how we ought to pray. This prayer is for me the greatest tool to daily maintain our new approach to life. In my own life, I have had seasons where I completely compromised my principles and let either resentments, the deceitfulness of riches, or other forms of selfishness block the power of God in my life. I say this to help us remember that we must learn a daily maintenance program, or, in time, the ground we have gained can be lost. Praise God there is grace to come back, and we can go through the whole eye-opening, liberating process again. In fact, we may need to do a thorough inventory and confession and make amends every year, BUT it is best to do this on a daily basis.
The purpose of prayer is twofold. First, we learn or practice how to orient ourselves properly toward God and life, and secondly, we consciously ask and receive power so that we can live the vision God has placed before us.
Our fundamental problem in life is that we lack power to live as God created us to live. God has created us to be His body and His instruments of love and peace on earth. We are to expand the rule and reign of Jesus Christ by making disciples of people from every nation. We are to bring God’s power in the gospel to everyone and we are to teach the discipleship program Jesus gave us to other powerless people. To even begin to do this mission, we have to know His saving power and His discipleship program ourselves. To be actually able to live the life, we have to orient ourselves properly before God and life and we need to learn to receive power form God to live out the life of Christ which we are attempting to imitate.
Jesus gave us one of the greatest gifts to our daily happiness in the Lord’s Prayer. Before we start, I would like to say a word about how long I think this prayer should take. Actually, I think it takes less time than I used to think.
My early years as a Christian were developed in a rather hyper-spiritual environment. A parade of “prayer warriors” and “prophets" were presented to the church, and I came to believe that prayer was this heroic feat to be performed by the few that were truly dedicated to God. I embarked on this journey, and, as a single man, I enjoyed a life of total surrender and intimacy with God. I was very fortunate in that I was graced with a love for the teachings of Jesus, and, so I learned great spiritual principles to base my life on. This life was indeed very fulfilling and contains for me some of the greatest memories of my life BUT then I got married.
For the next few years, I longed to get back to that kind of life of prayer. I thought I wasn’t spiritual because I couldn’t pray like I used to. Then I learned a simpler and actually far more effective life of prayer. Now, I would suggest that prayer is not intended to be a big heroic effort. Leave the heroics for the rest of the day. Prayer is actually rather simple. Certainly, at times a day of prayer or extended times of prayer and fasting are quite helpful, but, for our daily life, I think a private and intentional time of focused prayer based on the Lord’s prayer at the beginning and the end of the day of any length is great.
Father Hallowed Be Thy Name
The Lord ’s Prayer opens up with the death blow to self-centeredness. Father, let my life be centered on promoting Your and Your name and not my name. The Lord ’s Prayer then opens with a reminder of the principle of meekness and marries the idea of meekness with its faithful brother in virtue – worship. “Father, you alone are worthy of praise. May your name be hallowed and respected and honored” The flip side to this confession of our God-centered life is that we do not seek respect or honor for ourselves. I suggest not getting into specifics at this place in the prayer but, instead, simply centering our person Godward. Our supreme purpose in life is one - to bring Glory to God.
Your Kingdom Come Your Will Be Done On Earth as it is in Heaven
Here is where I would articulate God’s specific vision for our life. God’s vision for our life is to live the spiritual principles we have learned. So, I suggest praying four basic categories under Your kingdom come: meekness, mercy, purity, and peacemaking. Our purpose is to bring Glory to the name of the Father. Our vision or our tactic is to do this by living according to the principles of the kingdom. These principles represent a way of life entirely contrary to the way of the world and our natural tendencies. If we manifest the fruit of this orientation toward life and God, we will be salt and light that brings Him Glory.
Under the heading of purity, we might add sex, money, and motives. Next, we get to the most important part of the prayer. I say this because this portion addresses our real problem. Our problem is a lack of power.
Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread
The vision we have just stated before God is not a vision of us. We are not naturally meek or merciful or pure. But, there is someone who is. This vision of life describes Jesus Christ. Father, give me Jesus in my heart. The life I long to live can only be found through the power of the Spirit of Jesus. Galations 2:20 is a great verse to pray at this time. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me and the life I live I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me and delivered Himself us for me.”. “God provide for me the true bread that comes down from heaven - Jesus Christ - that He may do for me what I cannot do for myself”.
Under the peacemaking heading, I place any intercession and any relationships in which I am responsible to bring peace. I personally am the father in a large family, and my job is to create “shalom in the home”. “Lord make me a peace-maker in the home and at work and in the church…”.
Forgive us Our Sins as We forgive Those Who have Sinned Against Us
Here we have an opportunity to take a daily moral inventory. This portion is especially good for the evening prayer. Review the day. Ask yourself if you have caused any harm or injury to anyone. Do we need to make amends? If yes, write it down and tell a friend if necessary. Do I have any resentments? Do I need to forgive and bless anyone?
And Lead Us Not into Temptation But deliver Us from Evil
As we turn to face the day or the night as the case may be, we will approach life with confidence and without fear. God is with us. We are the most authentically human people on the planet. We are to be the most free and the most fearless, for God, our Father who is all good all the time, is with us. Nothing can over take us. Even if we wlk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, for He is our good Shepherd. So we pray asking humbly that we might be aware of His presence throughout the day. We pray that we might live through faith in His care and that we do not respond to life in fear as we used to.
So, we pray a simple but thorough God-centered prayer. Our prayers teach us to abide in Jesus' teaching. We are constantly reminded of His teachings to love our enemies and turn the other cheek. We are seeking to daily improve our spiritual life and our spiritual fruit. We know that it is relationship with our loving Father that keeps us from anger and fear and keeps us in perfect peace so that we can live a life of meekness and service to others.
As We Face the Day – Sharing With Others
The bible teaches us that we need to be ready at all times to share with others along the path of life why we are so hopeful and peaceful. Now that we have found a new life and we are seeing God do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, we have a method that we can share with others. The teachings of Jesus come with many promises. The Kingdom of Heaven, a heavenly quality of life, is within reach. If we have laid hold of it, what a great gift to give this peace to other harassed and helpless folk. We were lost once and now we have found a way to live life with God and to abide in Him and His ways. The way is indeed narrow, but it is understandable and doable. It doesn’t take a great theological mind to figure it out. In fact, how Jesus communicates His power to our person is quite a mystery to us, but we do know, from experience, that a power greater than ourselves has come to us in the name of Jesus. God has removed our sins and short-coming and removed our defects of character. How He has done it may be a mystery but that He has done it is plain for all to see.
If we work these steps, they will work for us, and we can share with anyone from any walk of life that, if they believe Jesus and take Him at His word, they too can live a life that is both happy and heavenly. God is no respecter of persons. We do not have to have a certain lineage nor do we need education to find this way of life. All we must be is rigorously honest.
So if we are to be of ultimate use to God and to others, we take these simple spiritual principles in hand and in our heart. We practice them in our daily lives and we share them with anyone who desires to listen.
May God Bless You and May His Kingdom Come and His Will be Done in you and through you and to all your loved ones,
God Bless,
brad
Thursday, August 11, 2005
The Passionate Pursuit of Perfection
I receive calls every day, many calls actually, from people I am discipling. We are in a “discipleship relationship”. We also are working a discipleship process, which involves a highly specified discipleship method.
It is so great to have people start from a place of need and call and ask for help, but not every body "reaches their bottom" and calls for help. Nonetheless, every body actually does need help. This post is intended to get you really thinking about starting such a highly intentional discipleship program. After this post (I promise) I will begin to articulate the content of the program itself. Admittedly, I am having trouble getting the process down on paper. Patience...thanks.
A Simple Question
Should you get in a discipleship relationship with someone who can lead you through a process of spiritual transformation? Instead, you could keep doing the same thing and expect different results. That is an option. For me, I have real problems that are readily apparent from my perspective to require serious intervention.
What is Your Problem?
For some of us if we were to ask this question, our problems would be something like, “My problem is trying to get everything done that needs to get done. Because I work so hard I, yeah, am pretty burnt out”. Oh, I know how to solve that problem. That is a spiritual problem. Do these few simple rigorous spiritual steps, and, if you do them right, your problem will be solved. At least the “I feel burnt out” part will be solved.
For others the problem might be we struggle with anger or lust. Well, I know how to solve those problems too. Those are spiritual problems. Follow these few rigorous spiritual steps, and, if you do it right, your problem will virtually evaporate. You will wake up one day and realize the problem is gone.
Some of us are just not very happy. Well, I know how to solve that one too…
My Problem
For me the problem is something like this. I don’t turn the other cheek very well of if I do I still whine to the Mrs.. I also do not go the extra mile and I have a hard time being “perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect”. Control of the tongue so that only what is wholesome and profitable is a bit of a problem at times. These problem for a long time baffled me, but there is a spiritual answer for these problem as well.
The Point
We all need to learn the spiritual principles Jesus taught us, and we all need to learn them in the context of a mentor who is better at it than we are. it is vital to accept that the passionate pursuit of perfection is great motivation to drive all of us into getting help, figuring out a method that works, and thereby entering discipleship relationships. If our goals are high enough, our need will be apparent. Do you possess a heavenly quality of life??
Well, just such a life is within reach!!! It is vital that we all change our minds about our expectations for just how free from our shortcomings we can be. Yes, just like Jesus promised, the kingdom of heaven is within reach…believe the gospel.
God Bless,
brad
It is so great to have people start from a place of need and call and ask for help, but not every body "reaches their bottom" and calls for help. Nonetheless, every body actually does need help. This post is intended to get you really thinking about starting such a highly intentional discipleship program. After this post (I promise) I will begin to articulate the content of the program itself. Admittedly, I am having trouble getting the process down on paper. Patience...thanks.
A Simple Question
Should you get in a discipleship relationship with someone who can lead you through a process of spiritual transformation? Instead, you could keep doing the same thing and expect different results. That is an option. For me, I have real problems that are readily apparent from my perspective to require serious intervention.
What is Your Problem?
For some of us if we were to ask this question, our problems would be something like, “My problem is trying to get everything done that needs to get done. Because I work so hard I, yeah, am pretty burnt out”. Oh, I know how to solve that problem. That is a spiritual problem. Do these few simple rigorous spiritual steps, and, if you do them right, your problem will be solved. At least the “I feel burnt out” part will be solved.
For others the problem might be we struggle with anger or lust. Well, I know how to solve those problems too. Those are spiritual problems. Follow these few rigorous spiritual steps, and, if you do it right, your problem will virtually evaporate. You will wake up one day and realize the problem is gone.
Some of us are just not very happy. Well, I know how to solve that one too…
My Problem
For me the problem is something like this. I don’t turn the other cheek very well of if I do I still whine to the Mrs.. I also do not go the extra mile and I have a hard time being “perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect”. Control of the tongue so that only what is wholesome and profitable is a bit of a problem at times. These problem for a long time baffled me, but there is a spiritual answer for these problem as well.
The Point
We all need to learn the spiritual principles Jesus taught us, and we all need to learn them in the context of a mentor who is better at it than we are. it is vital to accept that the passionate pursuit of perfection is great motivation to drive all of us into getting help, figuring out a method that works, and thereby entering discipleship relationships. If our goals are high enough, our need will be apparent. Do you possess a heavenly quality of life??
Well, just such a life is within reach!!! It is vital that we all change our minds about our expectations for just how free from our shortcomings we can be. Yes, just like Jesus promised, the kingdom of heaven is within reach…believe the gospel.
God Bless,
brad
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
The Spiritual Way - It Works (cont.)
The Spiritual Way – It Works!!
Jesus tells a great and very relevant parable in Mark 4. Jesus says;
"This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. 27Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. 28All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. 29As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come."
I contend that there is a path to true happiness and a heavenly quality of life that surpasses anything you have ever experienced but I have a confession. I know what to do to get it BUT I really do not know how it works. I know that if we take the steps Jesus calls us to do we become overwhelmed with how free and happy we are. But as to how it works in my heart and how God communicates His power and life to me. I have no idea. All I know is it works.
Jesus basically gives us a path to be filled with a power that totally alluded us before we set upon this journey. As we progress, we find out that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. All we do know is that if we sow to the Spirit, we reap righteousness, peace and joy. How it works? That one is for the smart guys and the theologians.
How does it work that when I humbly ask for God to remove my anger and fear and to empower me to “turn the other cheek” and to “not resist an evil person” and to “go the extra mile” that He puts His life in me and sets me free? I do not know the answer to that question. Nor does the 1st century farmer know how the soil makes the plants grow, but that doesn’t stop him from sowing seed. Does the farmer have to be convinced about the theory of osmosis and capillary action and chemistry and fructose before he makes a leap of faith and sows seeds? No, the farmer saw his father do it and he saw the harvest that came so he just trusts the process regardless of whether he intellectually understands how it works. The farmer really doesn’t even care how it works but only what the results are.
Here is a key to spirituality and Christianity. We are simply to be able to supply the suggested means that people need to take to enter into the truly happy and heavenly life, the kingdom of God. All our pontificating is really not relevant. All that is relevant is can we show results. A tree is known by its fruit.
Does your method deliver? Do people look at us and say ‘show me how to live because you have it down”. When we tell them the solution do we teach them how to sow in such a way that reaps the true reward of peace and righteousness.
The path is narrow and few take it but do not fool yourself and think it is intellectually challenging. The path to life does not require deep insight into the workings of the human psyche or an intricate scheme of self-knowledge and self-discovery. It does require a few things. The spiritual way requires rigorous honesty. In the course of this journey, we will come to realize that our approach to life is all wrong. Our minds are going to be changed every day and in every way. The spiritual way involves extensive house cleaning. But at the same time, we come to realize how simple the process is. The spiritual path takes courage but not strength. There are no heroes in the kingdom. No great heroic effort is required. We are far simpler than that. It doesn’t require great wisdom and intellectual prowess. We are far simpler than that. I hope you are willing to take this journey of simple daily steps toward a life you could have never dreamed is possible. But trust Jesus on this one, “ 7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened”. This is the promise that indeed the spiritual way works!!!
God Bless,
brad
Jesus tells a great and very relevant parable in Mark 4. Jesus says;
"This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. 27Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. 28All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. 29As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come."
I contend that there is a path to true happiness and a heavenly quality of life that surpasses anything you have ever experienced but I have a confession. I know what to do to get it BUT I really do not know how it works. I know that if we take the steps Jesus calls us to do we become overwhelmed with how free and happy we are. But as to how it works in my heart and how God communicates His power and life to me. I have no idea. All I know is it works.
Jesus basically gives us a path to be filled with a power that totally alluded us before we set upon this journey. As we progress, we find out that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. All we do know is that if we sow to the Spirit, we reap righteousness, peace and joy. How it works? That one is for the smart guys and the theologians.
How does it work that when I humbly ask for God to remove my anger and fear and to empower me to “turn the other cheek” and to “not resist an evil person” and to “go the extra mile” that He puts His life in me and sets me free? I do not know the answer to that question. Nor does the 1st century farmer know how the soil makes the plants grow, but that doesn’t stop him from sowing seed. Does the farmer have to be convinced about the theory of osmosis and capillary action and chemistry and fructose before he makes a leap of faith and sows seeds? No, the farmer saw his father do it and he saw the harvest that came so he just trusts the process regardless of whether he intellectually understands how it works. The farmer really doesn’t even care how it works but only what the results are.
Here is a key to spirituality and Christianity. We are simply to be able to supply the suggested means that people need to take to enter into the truly happy and heavenly life, the kingdom of God. All our pontificating is really not relevant. All that is relevant is can we show results. A tree is known by its fruit.
Does your method deliver? Do people look at us and say ‘show me how to live because you have it down”. When we tell them the solution do we teach them how to sow in such a way that reaps the true reward of peace and righteousness.
The path is narrow and few take it but do not fool yourself and think it is intellectually challenging. The path to life does not require deep insight into the workings of the human psyche or an intricate scheme of self-knowledge and self-discovery. It does require a few things. The spiritual way requires rigorous honesty. In the course of this journey, we will come to realize that our approach to life is all wrong. Our minds are going to be changed every day and in every way. The spiritual way involves extensive house cleaning. But at the same time, we come to realize how simple the process is. The spiritual path takes courage but not strength. There are no heroes in the kingdom. No great heroic effort is required. We are far simpler than that. It doesn’t require great wisdom and intellectual prowess. We are far simpler than that. I hope you are willing to take this journey of simple daily steps toward a life you could have never dreamed is possible. But trust Jesus on this one, “ 7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened”. This is the promise that indeed the spiritual way works!!!
God Bless,
brad
Monday, August 08, 2005
The Spiritual Way - It Works!!! - Sermon
These two sermons are from Matt 6:1 - Beware of practicing your righteousness before men in order o be seen by them. The sermons get to the heart of how we naturally are prone to turn our religion into another form of worldiness. The first sermon - Cultivating a Spirtual Life of Worship (stream) (download) speaks of the need to cultivate a heart of worship and the second sermon - The Spiritual Way - It Works (stream) (download) - looks at the Lord's prayer as a prayer for a God Centered Life as a direct answer to the problem of self-promoting religion.
God Bless,
brad
God Bless,
brad
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
The Second Principle of Discipleship - Faith
So far in our step by step discipleship program, we have look at being “poor in spirit”. In review, being poor in spirit is the abiding realization that we are sick and in constant need of grace from God to find true happiness and a heavenly quality of life. Every day and every instance, we find ourselves in situations that baffle us. We find our ego’s being bruised and we respond in ways that we know do not represent the person God wants us to be. We come to a place of hopelessness. Some respond by saying “well, I guess that is just the way it is. I am a sinner saved by grace and I always will be the limping sinful shmuck I am. Even Paul in Romans 7 was just like me”. Well, that response is simply a total distortion of the message of the Gospel of the kingdom. My hope is that those of us who refuse to live a life of mediocrity and bondage find instead a key in our sense of hopelessness. This key is to embrace our hopeless cause as “being poor in spirit”.
Add to being Poor in Spirit - Faith..
On my own, we are hopeless. We lack what it takes to find a morally beautiful life and to us hopeless cases there is a cure – “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. To us hopeless causes, there is the gospel of grace. God can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. God can remove our defects of character and restore our life to sanity. In fact, no matter where we are on the moral continuum, we can receive from God a quality of life that we could not ever attain apart from Him. My rut of sinfulness is not life controlling in the same way that some of my friends besetting sins are. Many of us can contain our selfishness so that we actually get a few things right in this life, but as for the kingdom, true happiness and a heavenly quality of life, this cannot be attained without the power of God in our life’s doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
I do not know about you but I want to know the power of His resurrection and to know how to share in His sufferings (respond to suffering like Jesus does) and I want to know Him better. I am not satisfied. Before I found the way of discipleship and faith in the whole Gospel, both the power and the powerful teachings of Jesus, I still hadn’t found what I was looking for.
Today’s post is on faith. Faith is simple, we believe that Jesus Christ can grant us quality of life that we could never attain apart from His power and His teaching in our lives. We believe that the habitual patterns in our life can be broken if we learn to place our faith in Him and are willing to follow His path into a new quality of life.
All human beings have one most fundamental problem, we lack the power to become the person God wants us to be. We have become alienated from the source of moral beauty. Our very person is corrupted and we have found ourselves sick and in slavery to our own character defects. Now, we need a way out and the way out is through a power outside ourselves. We are poor but God is great.
The gospel is an arrow downward. All the promises of the transformed life are in the Gospel of the kingdom.
A Prayer:
“Father, I am the poorest of the poor. Only You really know the truth of this statement. You know my heart and my life. You know the areas of my life that lack love and purity. My life is not a shining light that reflects You. These areas today I am coming to you specifically for help______________________________________________ _________________________________________________ _____________________________________ __________________________. I thank you for the realization of my own weakness and powerlessness. It is for the powerless that Jesus came to give a new quality of life. I believe that You alone through the name of Jesus Christ can deliver me daily from my sin and restore my life today to sanity. I believe the gospel that Jesus died and rose that I might have a truly happy and heavenly quality of life. I know that I do not know what this path looks like but I do know it looks like Jesus. Lord, I simply ask You to do for me what I could never do for myself as I pursue a new quality of life through faith in You.”
Now, prayers like this are NOT the path to new life but only a beginning step. The key is an entire spiritual program of discipleship which we will cover in the next few posts as we work through the Sermon on the Mount. Nonetheless, the principles are simple and so far we have suggested two which will if followed become a central steps toward a truly happy and heavenly quality of life. They are simply: being poor in spirit and placing our faith in Jesus Christ.
God Bless,
brad
Add to being Poor in Spirit - Faith..
On my own, we are hopeless. We lack what it takes to find a morally beautiful life and to us hopeless cases there is a cure – “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. To us hopeless causes, there is the gospel of grace. God can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. God can remove our defects of character and restore our life to sanity. In fact, no matter where we are on the moral continuum, we can receive from God a quality of life that we could not ever attain apart from Him. My rut of sinfulness is not life controlling in the same way that some of my friends besetting sins are. Many of us can contain our selfishness so that we actually get a few things right in this life, but as for the kingdom, true happiness and a heavenly quality of life, this cannot be attained without the power of God in our life’s doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
I do not know about you but I want to know the power of His resurrection and to know how to share in His sufferings (respond to suffering like Jesus does) and I want to know Him better. I am not satisfied. Before I found the way of discipleship and faith in the whole Gospel, both the power and the powerful teachings of Jesus, I still hadn’t found what I was looking for.
Today’s post is on faith. Faith is simple, we believe that Jesus Christ can grant us quality of life that we could never attain apart from His power and His teaching in our lives. We believe that the habitual patterns in our life can be broken if we learn to place our faith in Him and are willing to follow His path into a new quality of life.
All human beings have one most fundamental problem, we lack the power to become the person God wants us to be. We have become alienated from the source of moral beauty. Our very person is corrupted and we have found ourselves sick and in slavery to our own character defects. Now, we need a way out and the way out is through a power outside ourselves. We are poor but God is great.
The gospel is an arrow downward. All the promises of the transformed life are in the Gospel of the kingdom.
A Prayer:
“Father, I am the poorest of the poor. Only You really know the truth of this statement. You know my heart and my life. You know the areas of my life that lack love and purity. My life is not a shining light that reflects You. These areas today I am coming to you specifically for help______________________________________________ _________________________________________________ _____________________________________ __________________________. I thank you for the realization of my own weakness and powerlessness. It is for the powerless that Jesus came to give a new quality of life. I believe that You alone through the name of Jesus Christ can deliver me daily from my sin and restore my life today to sanity. I believe the gospel that Jesus died and rose that I might have a truly happy and heavenly quality of life. I know that I do not know what this path looks like but I do know it looks like Jesus. Lord, I simply ask You to do for me what I could never do for myself as I pursue a new quality of life through faith in You.”
Now, prayers like this are NOT the path to new life but only a beginning step. The key is an entire spiritual program of discipleship which we will cover in the next few posts as we work through the Sermon on the Mount. Nonetheless, the principles are simple and so far we have suggested two which will if followed become a central steps toward a truly happy and heavenly quality of life. They are simply: being poor in spirit and placing our faith in Jesus Christ.
God Bless,
brad
Friday, July 29, 2005
Our Discileship Program - Principle 1 - Being Poor in Spirit
Thus far we have seen that the quality of life which the church in general presents to the world is not exactly heavenly. Our salt is less than salty. Therefore, the church in the west, generally speaking, is really good for nothing but to be the world’s punching bag.
I contend that it is not supposed to be this way but that the Gospel promises a quality of life that is stunningly morally beautiful.
If this is true which it is, then why does the church in general and very very few in particular lack this stunningly morally beautiful life. The answer is simple. No one has taught most of us how to get this quality of life. Most churches lack a discipleship process that is tried, tested and true.
The need for a discipleship process that is tried tested and true is self evident to anyone who has attended a variety of churches in North America. Certainly there are exception but they are few and far between. Would you describe the quality of life which your church community displays to the community around you stunningly morally beautiful? How about your personal life? Do we possess a truly happy and heavenly quality of life?
These facts beg the question, why. The answer is simple. We lack a method or a process that if followed and worked with rigorous honesty and sincerity will deliver the intended outcomes of the gospel.
In these posts, I have attempted to convince the reader that we must accept that in order to attain this stunningly morally beautiful life, to attain true happiness and a heavenly quality of life that bears witness to the reality of the power of the Gospel of the Kingdom, we must learn how to practice the discipleship principles that Jesus taught us. We must embrace method and the need for method.
So, without further ado, let’s get with the program:
1. Poverty of Spirit: Any spiritual progress begins with an abiding confession and awareness of our spiritual poverty. The disciple of Jesus must learn an abiding confession and awareness of his or her spiritual poverty if they are to be a witness to the power of the Gospel of the Kingdom.
When Jesus begins his discipleship program to equip His disciples for ministry, He opens by saying “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”.
Being poor in spirit is the “double back flip” of Christian discipleship. There are certain skills that every gymnastics routine must have. One of these basic skills for the Olympic gymnast is the double back flip. It is like triple jumps in figure skating. There are certain basic skills that are requirements in a figure skating routine at the Olympic level. So too, practicing poverty of spirit must be basic to the daily routine of the life of the follower of Jesus.
What is Poverty of Spirit?
When I ask most people what is poverty of spirit, they answer humility. But poverty of spirit is humility. Poverty of spirit is a very specific attitude that we have before God. Poverty of spirit is the abiding awareness that spiritually speaking we are poor. As human beings, we are made in such a way that we do not have the spiritual resources in ourselves to attain holiness. No matter how much will power we muster, no matter how much self knowledge we gain, we remain powerless to change our fundamental spiritual qualities. We cannot no matter how hard we try remove our defects of character. We are powerless. We are, even as Christians, powerless in ourselves. We lack the resources to have a stunningly morally beautiful life. We are sick. We have a disease of fear and self unless Christ daily by His power and presence gives us a daily reprieve.
Jesus said to the Christian, to His disciples, “Abide in Me and let My words abide in you, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” Jesus was speaking of the need to remain daily dependent on Him and the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was teaching the disciples of their need to practice His teachings every day and maintain an abiding awareness and confession of their spiritual poverty if they are to bear fruit that brings glory to God. Fruit is the external evidence of the inward reality of Christ power in our lives. We are utterly powerless to bear fruit that reveals moral attributes that the natural man simply does not possess. Only through a rigorous spiritual program and the power of the Holy Spirit can we display the character of God. This abiding awareness is what it means to be “poor in spirit”.
So how do we practice being poor in spirit in our daily lives?
God has made us in such a way that we live a daily cycle. This cycle repeats itself 365 times a year. Therefore, we have many opportunities to develop spiritual disciples if we develop certain daily habits. One daily habit I am working on is “the first though of the day”. I desire my first though of the day to be a confession of the first beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. So when I wake I begin the day by saying, “Lord, I am sick but Your Gospel promises me that You can make me well”. My sickness is the propensity to defend self, to boast of self, to fear the injury of myself. This self-centeredness and selfishness is our natural tendency as human beings. It is this human nature that is at the root of all our problems, and through the Gospel we have daily deliverance from our self obsessive lives if we learn how to ask and how to exercise a few simple principles.
Another way to learn and practice poverty of spirit is in our morning devotions. The gospel is the message of what God has provided for the spiritual beggars of the world. Practicing thanksgiving for the gospel and awareness of our need for forgiveness and power is a practice of being poor in spirit. Worship that proclaims to the heavens and to our soul the greatness of God’s moral excellencies is a practice that orients our hearts before God as the creation before the creator. Such worship is a practice of being poor in spirit.
What about during the day?
Being poor in spirit is also essential to living the kingdom in our daily lives. Our world is full of sick people. We are all sick. I am sick. It is only a daily awareness of the Gospel and the exercise of simple spiritual principles that keeps us sane and sober minded. Those who do not know the gospel nor exercise spiritual principles are still living in the insanity of the world. This insanity is the tangled web of politicking and manipulations that people do to protect self and accomplish their agenda. Of course this insanity never gets us what we want but most of us do not know any other way of life. When I am aware that this sickness is the way the world works, I find myself being very compassionate. I do not judge someone for being sick. They are poor and they have inherited their poverty from their forefathers just like I inherited mine.
Our Father looked down from heaven and saw a world in desperate need. He sees the sickness of the world. Our sickness is deep in our psyche. Our sickness is a sickness of soul. Knowing our disease helps us take our medicine. When I am aware that I have this intense tendency to promote self, helps me to remain quite. I know that most of what I say is careless and is an attempt to garner respect or admiration. Men seek honor from men. This is our sickness. This abiding awareness and confession is a worldview that if we allow it to permeate our soul will lay a foundation for a life of dependence on God. Such an awareness leads to practicing God’s presence and waiting on Him. We are aware that our own will is somehow driven from fear and selfishness. So we find a greater peace in ceasing to participate in the ego games of our fellows. We begin to see another way of life based not on pride and self but on compassion and peace.
So being poor in spirit becomes for us the triple toe-loop of our spiritual walk. Being poor in spirit is central to our daily routine and the foundation of all our spiritual program. From this abiding confession or our spiritual poverty, we find that we are far more helpful in showing other harassed and helpless members of humanity where they too can find rest for their weary souls.
God Bless,
brad
I contend that it is not supposed to be this way but that the Gospel promises a quality of life that is stunningly morally beautiful.
If this is true which it is, then why does the church in general and very very few in particular lack this stunningly morally beautiful life. The answer is simple. No one has taught most of us how to get this quality of life. Most churches lack a discipleship process that is tried, tested and true.
The need for a discipleship process that is tried tested and true is self evident to anyone who has attended a variety of churches in North America. Certainly there are exception but they are few and far between. Would you describe the quality of life which your church community displays to the community around you stunningly morally beautiful? How about your personal life? Do we possess a truly happy and heavenly quality of life?
These facts beg the question, why. The answer is simple. We lack a method or a process that if followed and worked with rigorous honesty and sincerity will deliver the intended outcomes of the gospel.
In these posts, I have attempted to convince the reader that we must accept that in order to attain this stunningly morally beautiful life, to attain true happiness and a heavenly quality of life that bears witness to the reality of the power of the Gospel of the Kingdom, we must learn how to practice the discipleship principles that Jesus taught us. We must embrace method and the need for method.
So, without further ado, let’s get with the program:
1. Poverty of Spirit: Any spiritual progress begins with an abiding confession and awareness of our spiritual poverty. The disciple of Jesus must learn an abiding confession and awareness of his or her spiritual poverty if they are to be a witness to the power of the Gospel of the Kingdom.
When Jesus begins his discipleship program to equip His disciples for ministry, He opens by saying “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”.
Being poor in spirit is the “double back flip” of Christian discipleship. There are certain skills that every gymnastics routine must have. One of these basic skills for the Olympic gymnast is the double back flip. It is like triple jumps in figure skating. There are certain basic skills that are requirements in a figure skating routine at the Olympic level. So too, practicing poverty of spirit must be basic to the daily routine of the life of the follower of Jesus.
What is Poverty of Spirit?
When I ask most people what is poverty of spirit, they answer humility. But poverty of spirit is humility. Poverty of spirit is a very specific attitude that we have before God. Poverty of spirit is the abiding awareness that spiritually speaking we are poor. As human beings, we are made in such a way that we do not have the spiritual resources in ourselves to attain holiness. No matter how much will power we muster, no matter how much self knowledge we gain, we remain powerless to change our fundamental spiritual qualities. We cannot no matter how hard we try remove our defects of character. We are powerless. We are, even as Christians, powerless in ourselves. We lack the resources to have a stunningly morally beautiful life. We are sick. We have a disease of fear and self unless Christ daily by His power and presence gives us a daily reprieve.
Jesus said to the Christian, to His disciples, “Abide in Me and let My words abide in you, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” Jesus was speaking of the need to remain daily dependent on Him and the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was teaching the disciples of their need to practice His teachings every day and maintain an abiding awareness and confession of their spiritual poverty if they are to bear fruit that brings glory to God. Fruit is the external evidence of the inward reality of Christ power in our lives. We are utterly powerless to bear fruit that reveals moral attributes that the natural man simply does not possess. Only through a rigorous spiritual program and the power of the Holy Spirit can we display the character of God. This abiding awareness is what it means to be “poor in spirit”.
So how do we practice being poor in spirit in our daily lives?
God has made us in such a way that we live a daily cycle. This cycle repeats itself 365 times a year. Therefore, we have many opportunities to develop spiritual disciples if we develop certain daily habits. One daily habit I am working on is “the first though of the day”. I desire my first though of the day to be a confession of the first beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. So when I wake I begin the day by saying, “Lord, I am sick but Your Gospel promises me that You can make me well”. My sickness is the propensity to defend self, to boast of self, to fear the injury of myself. This self-centeredness and selfishness is our natural tendency as human beings. It is this human nature that is at the root of all our problems, and through the Gospel we have daily deliverance from our self obsessive lives if we learn how to ask and how to exercise a few simple principles.
Another way to learn and practice poverty of spirit is in our morning devotions. The gospel is the message of what God has provided for the spiritual beggars of the world. Practicing thanksgiving for the gospel and awareness of our need for forgiveness and power is a practice of being poor in spirit. Worship that proclaims to the heavens and to our soul the greatness of God’s moral excellencies is a practice that orients our hearts before God as the creation before the creator. Such worship is a practice of being poor in spirit.
What about during the day?
Being poor in spirit is also essential to living the kingdom in our daily lives. Our world is full of sick people. We are all sick. I am sick. It is only a daily awareness of the Gospel and the exercise of simple spiritual principles that keeps us sane and sober minded. Those who do not know the gospel nor exercise spiritual principles are still living in the insanity of the world. This insanity is the tangled web of politicking and manipulations that people do to protect self and accomplish their agenda. Of course this insanity never gets us what we want but most of us do not know any other way of life. When I am aware that this sickness is the way the world works, I find myself being very compassionate. I do not judge someone for being sick. They are poor and they have inherited their poverty from their forefathers just like I inherited mine.
Our Father looked down from heaven and saw a world in desperate need. He sees the sickness of the world. Our sickness is deep in our psyche. Our sickness is a sickness of soul. Knowing our disease helps us take our medicine. When I am aware that I have this intense tendency to promote self, helps me to remain quite. I know that most of what I say is careless and is an attempt to garner respect or admiration. Men seek honor from men. This is our sickness. This abiding awareness and confession is a worldview that if we allow it to permeate our soul will lay a foundation for a life of dependence on God. Such an awareness leads to practicing God’s presence and waiting on Him. We are aware that our own will is somehow driven from fear and selfishness. So we find a greater peace in ceasing to participate in the ego games of our fellows. We begin to see another way of life based not on pride and self but on compassion and peace.
So being poor in spirit becomes for us the triple toe-loop of our spiritual walk. Being poor in spirit is central to our daily routine and the foundation of all our spiritual program. From this abiding confession or our spiritual poverty, we find that we are far more helpful in showing other harassed and helpless members of humanity where they too can find rest for their weary souls.
God Bless,
brad
Thursday, July 21, 2005
More on Method
The Rule of Saint Francis starts as follows:
“In the name of the Lord, the life of the lesser brothers begins.
The rule and life of the lesser brothers is this: To observe the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ…”
I have always loved this phrase. "Our rule of life is to observe the Gospel". Francis is saying “our way of life is an attempt to put into practice the teachings of Jesus”. Francis understands that to have at our disposal a way to blesseness is indeed Gospel. We do not normally think of the teaching of Jesus as “gospel” or good news, but the fact that there is a way to a heavenly quality of life and that way has been tried and tested and found to work is great news.
The Franciscans could simply say if you want to know true blessedness do what we do as we follow Jesus. Now, don't get lost in theology on this point. Certainly to put into practice the teachings of Jesus includes believing that His atonement made the life of God available for the soul of man and that this faith is a grace from God in itself. In fact, Jesus' first teaching is to be poor in Spirit and approach God like a tax collector and not a self-righteous Pharisee.
But observing the Gospel an entering a heavenly quality of life is more than just being reconciled to God but also allowing the rule and reign of Jesus to invade every aspect of our lives. How do we observe this good news of Jesus' rule and reign in heaven and on earth and is there a simple path to follow to at least have the priorties of the kingdom?
This simple path is what the Franciscans called "observign the gospel".
How would you describe what observing the gospel of Jesus Christ looks like? Surely, it is a life of forgiving our enemies, of caring for the poor and suffering, of prayer and worship, of material simplicity, of humility and servanthood. Surely, the observing the Gospel is a life of mission and disciple-making. Surely, observing the Gospel is a life filled with visiting the sick and dying. But it is still more. Observing the Gospel is a life of learning to accept trials without depression or anger. Observing the Gospel is a life of circumspect speech, of refraining from gossip and slander. Observing the gospel is a life without boasting. Observing the Gospel is a life of conscious contact and awareness of God.
In the 13th century, the Franciscans had a particular and, to many of us, a peculiar way of living out this obedience of faith. As followers of Jesus in the 21st Century, following Jesus, though similar in principle, may be quite different in practice than that of Francis and his brothers. These differences are a manner of method. Today we cook cookies or bread different than men and women did in the 13th century but the outcome is quite similar in flavor.
The Need to Embrace Method and Find Method as Communities
Jesus said “seek and you shall find”. Seek what? Seek answers to your prayers. Seek conscious contact with God. But can you seek answers in pray and the presence of God any which way you desire? If I seek God through drugs or alcohol will I find Him? If I don’t find Him can I say, the principle "seek and you shall find" is false? No!! May it never be!! The principle is this “seek God in the way I have taught you and you will find Him”. Seek the kingdom through these simple ways and you will find the kingdom. The difference between those who find what they are looking for and those who do not is entirely a manner of methods.
If I desire to teach my daughter how to bake cookies, I will go step by step through the process. If I am a good teacher and I personally know how to bake cookies, then the chances are very good that we will enjoy the fruit of our labors and eat nice moist cookies. Jesus is the best teacher of all, and, through the Holy Spirit, we can find the methods that can help us, together, find how to enter the desired outcomes of the teaching of Jesus. But, we cannot expect to attain to any level of true happiness and a heavenly quality of life if we do not seek effective methods.
If someone were to ask you, teach me to pray, how would you respond? If the person you were teaching followed your instructions would they find what they were looking for? Would they find conscious contact with God and pleasure in Him? Would they find the path to answered prayer?
Jesus answered this question and taught the orientations of the beatitudes in prayer. Begin with worship and lowliness, enter into a posture of meekness and surrender, begin petitioning for the kingdom like you seek for food and sustenance, practice forgiveness and mercy in your prayer life, and finally pray for purity and peace. This model prayer and its model attitudes in the beatitudes is method. In fact, the Lord’s model prayer is rather strict method which His early followers understood as a model for our approach to Go if our prayer life is to have the desired outcomes.
If a person asked you how to pray, would you use model prayers or a model of certain attitudes that are necessary to find God in our prayer life and to pray rightly? Would you teach boldness in prayer? Would you warn against rote prayers and vain prayers? Would you warn against selfish prayers like James does?
The basic assumption in this series which I am beginning is that if we follow the teachings of Jesus as outlined in the Sermon on the Mount, we will enter the Kingdom of heaven or a truly happy and heavenly quality of life. This is a big assumption. Do you believe it? If we follow the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, and all the teaching of Jesus for that matter, these teachings will lead us into the blessed life. The Sermon on the Mount gives to us clear instruction with respect to a Spiritual program which leads us into the kingdom. It is a spiritual program based on our utter poverty in ourselves and our utter dependence on the grace of God, but nonetheless, it is a program and a method. Though our method and our application may look different technically from the generations before us, we must like generations before us find a repeatable and clearly articulated method. Without a method, which is developed together as communities, we will in no way be able to find a repeatable path to the kingdom nor will we be able to lead others on the path when we find it.
God Bless,
brad
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
In Defense of Method
When I was a young Christian, I loved Saint Francis of Assisi. One element of Francis' order that I thought was helpful was the idea of the "rule". Franciscans have a rule. A rule, in monastic life, is a simple booklet that explains their way of life. The rule of Saint Francis explains the simple rules that govern the life of the Franciscan. These simple rules give structure to the Franciscan spirituality. In today's "post-modern", relativistic, and individualistic world, we tend to feel quite uneasy around talk of such man-made rules and tend to shy away from attempting to develop methods to our spiritual practices. We do this much to our own peril.
Rules or methods are central to a community creating a corporate document, a living expression, of their spiritual journey and their spiritual life.
The Daily Cycle
It seems clear to me that any method should be based on the cycle of the day. How do we do morning prayers? How do we live our daily lives and how do we do evening prayers? How do we take our meals and pray together at meals, and how do we perform daily worship together?
A Method for Discipleship
Any discipleship method which is attempting to uncover the apostolic model which Christ gave His first followers must include these elements. How ought we to perform our morning prayers? What are the basic rules that govern our daily lives? How ought we to worship together? etc.
The Sermon on the Mount covers almost, if not all, of these areas and is the basis of the simple ways and rules that are to govern the daily lives of Christians. I think it is important for each Christian community that seeks to follow Jesus to develop a method of following the Gospel that makes sense and works for them. We need method. We need to be able to articulate our way of life when people come to us and ask to join us. Sure we must be living this life first and foremost, but we must also be capable of explaining our life to others in a simple and repeatable manner.
To do this we must embrace some form of method. The development of method is vital to significant progress in the spiritual transformation of an community. It is time for all of us, as disciples of Christ, to develop, for ourselves and those we help, methods that explain and can be used as tools to help others enter our quality of life.
God Bless,
brad
Rules or methods are central to a community creating a corporate document, a living expression, of their spiritual journey and their spiritual life.
The Daily Cycle
It seems clear to me that any method should be based on the cycle of the day. How do we do morning prayers? How do we live our daily lives and how do we do evening prayers? How do we take our meals and pray together at meals, and how do we perform daily worship together?
A Method for Discipleship
Any discipleship method which is attempting to uncover the apostolic model which Christ gave His first followers must include these elements. How ought we to perform our morning prayers? What are the basic rules that govern our daily lives? How ought we to worship together? etc.
The Sermon on the Mount covers almost, if not all, of these areas and is the basis of the simple ways and rules that are to govern the daily lives of Christians. I think it is important for each Christian community that seeks to follow Jesus to develop a method of following the Gospel that makes sense and works for them. We need method. We need to be able to articulate our way of life when people come to us and ask to join us. Sure we must be living this life first and foremost, but we must also be capable of explaining our life to others in a simple and repeatable manner.
To do this we must embrace some form of method. The development of method is vital to significant progress in the spiritual transformation of an community. It is time for all of us, as disciples of Christ, to develop, for ourselves and those we help, methods that explain and can be used as tools to help others enter our quality of life.
God Bless,
brad
Bob Dylan - Chronicles
I am reading Dylan's autobiography. I just have one question for anyone else who has read this book: Do you think Dylan is writing actual history or fiction?
Personally, I do not believe very many of the stories are true at all. I do not think the characters are real. I think this method of Dylan's is the same it has always been. Dylan uses fantasy and dream pictures to unveil what is really happening in the culture. It is like he creates demons and angels to explain change and culture war.
Enough for now...
What is Dylan's real take on the late 20th century? That is the question this book is answering and a few times he does come right out and say it! But that is for next time.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Let Your Yes be Yes - Our Words and Our Discipleship
I really would like to begin a point by point outline of the Sermon on the Mount but what is really on my mind and heart is Jesus’ saying in Matthew 5 vs 32-37:
33"Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.' 34But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; 35or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
This passage is stunning in its weight and has brought me low. Jesus is saying, ‘do not add value to your words by attaching them to something of value. Instead, let your words stand on their own. Know this, if you need to or even attempt to add value to your words by attaching them to something holy this is evil.” What a strange custom that we do this swearing ritual.
“I swear on a stack of bibles”
“As God is my witness, blah blah blah”
We do this as a negotiation tactic. We do this to make our words believable because we have so many words spoken in our day that are just, well how do we say, about as valuable as male cow dung. Instead, let’s take a different approach to our words. Let our words be few. Let our words though few be weighty and valuable.
“That man’s words are gold”
“If he says he will do something, you can take it to the bank.”
Our words are to be backed by the full power of our integrity.
“If a man does not bridle his tongue, his religion is worthless”
"But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment”
But this is not the story of the people of God in our day…
No one in all my years of Christianity has ever discipled me in the practice of quite. No man has taken me aside and said, “My son, you are new to the spiritual way of life. If you are to understand holiness, you must learn to let your words be few and let them always be weighty and true. A man’s words are to be careful and thoughtful. Learn to speak with words that are never angry or haughty or arrogant but instead always kind and wise.”
In the real world, men are constantly politicking and positioning themselves to protect themselves and increase their power within their social and economic worlds. To do this self promoting work, we use our words. To achieve our ends, we sacrifice our integrity and the honor of our words. To be followers of Jesus, we must not be like the world in how we build up self with our words and our boasts.
To be a follower of Jesus our entire perspective on how we speak and why we speak must experience a conversion. Our words are to reflect the truth and to be used to communicate the truth humbly. Never are our words to be used to deceive or to manipulate. Such a transformation of our speech is central to the life of a follower of Jesus.
God Bless,
brad
33"Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.' 34But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; 35or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
This passage is stunning in its weight and has brought me low. Jesus is saying, ‘do not add value to your words by attaching them to something of value. Instead, let your words stand on their own. Know this, if you need to or even attempt to add value to your words by attaching them to something holy this is evil.” What a strange custom that we do this swearing ritual.
“I swear on a stack of bibles”
“As God is my witness, blah blah blah”
We do this as a negotiation tactic. We do this to make our words believable because we have so many words spoken in our day that are just, well how do we say, about as valuable as male cow dung. Instead, let’s take a different approach to our words. Let our words be few. Let our words though few be weighty and valuable.
“That man’s words are gold”
“If he says he will do something, you can take it to the bank.”
Our words are to be backed by the full power of our integrity.
“If a man does not bridle his tongue, his religion is worthless”
"But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment”
But this is not the story of the people of God in our day…
No one in all my years of Christianity has ever discipled me in the practice of quite. No man has taken me aside and said, “My son, you are new to the spiritual way of life. If you are to understand holiness, you must learn to let your words be few and let them always be weighty and true. A man’s words are to be careful and thoughtful. Learn to speak with words that are never angry or haughty or arrogant but instead always kind and wise.”
In the real world, men are constantly politicking and positioning themselves to protect themselves and increase their power within their social and economic worlds. To do this self promoting work, we use our words. To achieve our ends, we sacrifice our integrity and the honor of our words. To be followers of Jesus, we must not be like the world in how we build up self with our words and our boasts.
To be a follower of Jesus our entire perspective on how we speak and why we speak must experience a conversion. Our words are to reflect the truth and to be used to communicate the truth humbly. Never are our words to be used to deceive or to manipulate. Such a transformation of our speech is central to the life of a follower of Jesus.
God Bless,
brad
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Sexulaity and the Kingdom of Heaven - The Sermon
The post below is a short blog reflection on this Sermon:
Sexuality and the Kingdom of Heaven - Matt 5:27-30 (stream) (download).
I plan on blogging this sermon series in more detail. I am personally experience deep and apperantly lasting renewal from the application of the teachings of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount and I will do my best to help others enter the a similar quality of life that I am currently experiencing.
God Bless, brad
Sexuality and the Kingdom of Heaven - Matt 5:27-30 (stream) (download).
I plan on blogging this sermon series in more detail. I am personally experience deep and apperantly lasting renewal from the application of the teachings of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount and I will do my best to help others enter the a similar quality of life that I am currently experiencing.
God Bless, brad
Monday, July 11, 2005
Sexuality and the Kingdom of Heaven
Matt 5:27-30 "You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY'; 28but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29"If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30"If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.
The Sermon on the Mount is filled with numerous radical ethical claims. Jesus instructs His followers to be meek. He commands His followers to “go the extra mile” for those who treat them unjustly. He says to turn the other cheek to those who injure us. He teaches us that to even say “what an idiot” reveals that our hearts that lacks His mercy and love. Jesus teaches His followers to love and bless their enemies.
Another radical ethical claim of Christianity is in the realm of sexuality. Jesus teaches that to look at a woman lustfully is to have already committed adultery in our hearts. To understand Jesus’ teaching on sexuality and lust, we must understand the difference between a secular and a spiritual view of sexuality.
Why Did God Create Sex?
In Genesis 3, the bible teaches that God looked at man and saw that it was not good for man to be alone. The story then says that God put man asleep and created woman. The teaching is that God created man male and female because it is not good for man to be alone. In other words, God created sex so to bind two people together in life long growing intimate relationship. The purpose of sex is not first and foremost reproduction but relationship. Here is the key to understanding sexuality. The beasts have sex to procreate. So God gave them an appetite and an instinct for sex. The sexual appetite is to be met in order to procreate. But this is not true with man who was created in God’s image. The purpose of sex for Christians and spiritual people is as a culmination and celebration of relationship. Here is the difference between a secular and a Spiritual view of sex.
A Secular vs. A Spiritual View of Sex
To the natural mind, sex is an appetite. This appetite needs to be satisfied. This appetite was given to propagate the species. To suppress this appetite is unnatural. Therefore, the balanced sexual ethic is to satisfy one’s appetite so long as one does it responsibly. To harm one’s family or marriage, to get a girl pregnant when you really do not intend to get pregnant, to spread a disease, these things are irresponsible sex. One ought to enjoy the sexual experience and satisfy the sexual appetite so long as one does this responsibly. This approach is seen as sophisticated, modern and natural. But this view is not spiritual nor is it the teaching of Jesus.
A Spiritual Approach to Sex
The Spiritual approach to sex starts with the biblical truth that sexuality is first and foremost given to mankind to have a deepening covenant relationship. The man and the woman are to be co-workers in God’s vineyard together and to find union in the labors of life that God has given to them as a couple and a family. Any sex which is not first an expression of a co-laboring in the purposes of life is not a Spiritual approach to sex. This being true, I have always taught and followed the following rule to guide my sexuality.
When I was dating my wife, I told here that I believed that during our dating relationship there were a few basic questions that we need to answer. I wanted our relationship to center first and foremost on our unity with respect to our understanding of our calling from God. So the questions I asked myself are something like the following:
Do we have a similar love for God?
Do we express a similar affection for the excellencies of Jesus Christ? Do we similarly understand forgiveness and mercy? Do we similarly seek meekness and service? Do we approach worship the same and do we find unity as we worship and pray together? Do we interpret scriptures and the teachings of Jesus from the same overarching theological perspective?
My wife and I dated for about two years and during this time we spent most of our time ministering and praying together. Our spiritual DNA was developed from common experiences in worship and ministry. The answers to our ability to fellowship in the word and prayer and ministry was strongly answered in the affirmative.
After finding that we were a spiritual “match”, we were engaged. The engagement period is the time when the couple can feel freely to express their hearts toward one another. This period I think is when the two allow their affections and feelings to become filled with romantic feelings as they prepare for marriage and the consummation of their love.
I tell this story as an illustration of how the spiritual approach to sexuality is a celebration of a couples spiritual and emotional unity. Any sexual act which is merely the satisfaction of an appetite is violating this most basic principle.
What is vital is that after marriage it is vital that a couple continues to approach their sexual relationship according to the pattern that is best during the dating, engagement and honeymoon period. In other words, in marriage, sex must not be merely the satisfaction of sexual appetites. Instead, the couple must continue to make their spiritual fellowship the foundation of their relationship.
In 1 Cor. 7:5, Paul instructs couples to abstain from sex for an agreed upon period for a time of prayer. So if a couple realizes that the spiritual fellowship of praying and worship together is lacking and that they need to find unity in their vision for the kingdom in their home and their lives, then they ought to take a time out sexually and spend time praying and worshipping together.
I would bet that many couples have never laid such a foundation in their relationship. In such cases, the couple should seek a mentoring relationship or a discipleship relationship to learn these practices. To manage a home well and possess the wisdom to raise children in the grace of God, a couple must have their spiritual life be the center of their relationship.
Then from this renewed intimacy at the most authentic area of our lives, our spiritual lives. Our spiritual lives is the place of our loves and affections, our values and our dreams. As we together place our hearts before God, we find true relationship. From this intimacy we are to celebrate our life together through sexual relations.
May all Christian husbands and wives make this spiritual unity the foundation of their homes.
God Bless,
brad
The Sermon on the Mount is filled with numerous radical ethical claims. Jesus instructs His followers to be meek. He commands His followers to “go the extra mile” for those who treat them unjustly. He says to turn the other cheek to those who injure us. He teaches us that to even say “what an idiot” reveals that our hearts that lacks His mercy and love. Jesus teaches His followers to love and bless their enemies.
Another radical ethical claim of Christianity is in the realm of sexuality. Jesus teaches that to look at a woman lustfully is to have already committed adultery in our hearts. To understand Jesus’ teaching on sexuality and lust, we must understand the difference between a secular and a spiritual view of sexuality.
Why Did God Create Sex?
In Genesis 3, the bible teaches that God looked at man and saw that it was not good for man to be alone. The story then says that God put man asleep and created woman. The teaching is that God created man male and female because it is not good for man to be alone. In other words, God created sex so to bind two people together in life long growing intimate relationship. The purpose of sex is not first and foremost reproduction but relationship. Here is the key to understanding sexuality. The beasts have sex to procreate. So God gave them an appetite and an instinct for sex. The sexual appetite is to be met in order to procreate. But this is not true with man who was created in God’s image. The purpose of sex for Christians and spiritual people is as a culmination and celebration of relationship. Here is the difference between a secular and a Spiritual view of sex.
A Secular vs. A Spiritual View of Sex
To the natural mind, sex is an appetite. This appetite needs to be satisfied. This appetite was given to propagate the species. To suppress this appetite is unnatural. Therefore, the balanced sexual ethic is to satisfy one’s appetite so long as one does it responsibly. To harm one’s family or marriage, to get a girl pregnant when you really do not intend to get pregnant, to spread a disease, these things are irresponsible sex. One ought to enjoy the sexual experience and satisfy the sexual appetite so long as one does this responsibly. This approach is seen as sophisticated, modern and natural. But this view is not spiritual nor is it the teaching of Jesus.
A Spiritual Approach to Sex
The Spiritual approach to sex starts with the biblical truth that sexuality is first and foremost given to mankind to have a deepening covenant relationship. The man and the woman are to be co-workers in God’s vineyard together and to find union in the labors of life that God has given to them as a couple and a family. Any sex which is not first an expression of a co-laboring in the purposes of life is not a Spiritual approach to sex. This being true, I have always taught and followed the following rule to guide my sexuality.
When I was dating my wife, I told here that I believed that during our dating relationship there were a few basic questions that we need to answer. I wanted our relationship to center first and foremost on our unity with respect to our understanding of our calling from God. So the questions I asked myself are something like the following:
Do we have a similar love for God?
Do we express a similar affection for the excellencies of Jesus Christ? Do we similarly understand forgiveness and mercy? Do we similarly seek meekness and service? Do we approach worship the same and do we find unity as we worship and pray together? Do we interpret scriptures and the teachings of Jesus from the same overarching theological perspective?
My wife and I dated for about two years and during this time we spent most of our time ministering and praying together. Our spiritual DNA was developed from common experiences in worship and ministry. The answers to our ability to fellowship in the word and prayer and ministry was strongly answered in the affirmative.
After finding that we were a spiritual “match”, we were engaged. The engagement period is the time when the couple can feel freely to express their hearts toward one another. This period I think is when the two allow their affections and feelings to become filled with romantic feelings as they prepare for marriage and the consummation of their love.
I tell this story as an illustration of how the spiritual approach to sexuality is a celebration of a couples spiritual and emotional unity. Any sexual act which is merely the satisfaction of an appetite is violating this most basic principle.
What is vital is that after marriage it is vital that a couple continues to approach their sexual relationship according to the pattern that is best during the dating, engagement and honeymoon period. In other words, in marriage, sex must not be merely the satisfaction of sexual appetites. Instead, the couple must continue to make their spiritual fellowship the foundation of their relationship.
In 1 Cor. 7:5, Paul instructs couples to abstain from sex for an agreed upon period for a time of prayer. So if a couple realizes that the spiritual fellowship of praying and worship together is lacking and that they need to find unity in their vision for the kingdom in their home and their lives, then they ought to take a time out sexually and spend time praying and worshipping together.
I would bet that many couples have never laid such a foundation in their relationship. In such cases, the couple should seek a mentoring relationship or a discipleship relationship to learn these practices. To manage a home well and possess the wisdom to raise children in the grace of God, a couple must have their spiritual life be the center of their relationship.
Then from this renewed intimacy at the most authentic area of our lives, our spiritual lives. Our spiritual lives is the place of our loves and affections, our values and our dreams. As we together place our hearts before God, we find true relationship. From this intimacy we are to celebrate our life together through sexual relations.
May all Christian husbands and wives make this spiritual unity the foundation of their homes.
God Bless,
brad
The Return of the Blog
Lately, as I have noted earlier, I have been experiencing personnal renewal or personal revival. But I have not been journaling these experiences through this blog very consistently. I have decided that it would be helpful to write more on the subject of my persoanl discipleship journey over the last 2 months.
I think part of the reason is that my experiences are very personal and hard to post to the whole world out there...On the other hand, I am finding that sermons are not as easy to prepare without more writing during the week. In other words, blogging helps me process and describe my experiences...
Therefore, I have decided to start blogging again. I will try to post daily for the remainder of the month.
If you are interested in discipleship. I cannot urge you strong enough to visit our church's sermons page and listen to our recent sermon series on the Sermon on the Mount. I believe that if you put these spiriutal priniciples into practice you and your community will find a truly happy and heavenly quality of life.
God Bless,
brad
I think part of the reason is that my experiences are very personal and hard to post to the whole world out there...On the other hand, I am finding that sermons are not as easy to prepare without more writing during the week. In other words, blogging helps me process and describe my experiences...
Therefore, I have decided to start blogging again. I will try to post daily for the remainder of the month.
If you are interested in discipleship. I cannot urge you strong enough to visit our church's sermons page and listen to our recent sermon series on the Sermon on the Mount. I believe that if you put these spiriutal priniciples into practice you and your community will find a truly happy and heavenly quality of life.
God Bless,
brad
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
My Bliss
Am I weird or what?
Today is my birthday, and my wife asked me what I wanted. My answer: 5 hours of uninterrupted time in my office with my guitar and my Martyn Lloyd Jones sermons on the Sermon on the Mount.
Ahh....bliss.
God Bless,
brad
Today is my birthday, and my wife asked me what I wanted. My answer: 5 hours of uninterrupted time in my office with my guitar and my Martyn Lloyd Jones sermons on the Sermon on the Mount.
Ahh....bliss.
God Bless,
brad
Monday, June 27, 2005
My Personal Journey into the Heart of Meekness and Mercy
Recently, I have been quite busy with discipleship and have not been blogging these experiences. Basically, I really believe I am in a wonderful place in ministry. Before I share on the fruit of our recent discipleship efforts in our church (which you can get a taste of by listening to sermons - especially these on meekness (download) and mercy (download)), I would like to share some personal testimony.
About a month or so ago, I began teaching on the Sermon on the Mount. We decided as a congregation to use Celebrate Recovery and other 12 step material in small groups to supplement the Sunday teaching. The results have been wonderful for me.
A little background.
I have been around AA and NA for about 15 years. More recently a friend of mine in SA has been using me as a sponsor or mentor for about the last three years. This relationship has helped me get more intimate exposure to the methods of the 12 steps over the last few years. Then about two years ago a member of our congregation went into recovery and I began to meet regularly with this man. This relationship began to effect my preaching as I began to use some Big Book language from our times together of discipleship. Next, about 18 months ago another man, with 28 years in AA began attending our church. I began a regular discussion of the 12 steps with this man as well. All this led to a recent sermon and small group studies from the Sermon on the Mount which I am preaching which uses AA tools and 12 step language to give applications to the sermons. We are using these tools, basically doing the 12 steps through journaling, in our sermon based small groups.
Well this all brings me to how this is affecting me personally.
My Personal Testimony
When I was a young believer, 1986-1993, I led a truly monastic and missionary lifestyle. It is only after I lost this level of intimacy with God and effectiveness in ministry did I actually realize the value of what I had. In those years many people were being converted and our small groups were growing consistently. I led a discipleship home with some friends and ha a great deal of time for daily prayer and worship. I worked at the church but only worked about 20 hours a week. I believe that if I had understood what we really had in those days and learned to transfer this lifestyle to others, we could have had a far greater and lasting influence for good. But our church got into some hyper-Pentecostalism and I eventually found that I didn’t fit in.
As the church changed and my children got older, I found I was unwilling to raise my children in this church community. My wife and I decided to leave. I found through this process that I was quite injured emotionally. In fact, the way I dressed changed. Looking back at the process, I realize now that for years before I left that church I had begun to gossip or at least speak negatively about some of the church leadership. I was filled with negativity about the entire path the church had taken BUT I was too immature and undiscipled myself to know how to process these resentments about how leadership was directing the church. In short, my response to the process was a compromise of the life of unconditional love that I a been walking in. My heart became bitter and resentful and, now I realize, that it was this compromise with the ways of love and forgiveness that quenched my intimacy with God, my personal life of worship and devotion and ultimately led to a spiritual place that though unobservable to most was far less than I had experienced earlier.
What Actually Happened
When I was a new believer I took the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount very seriously. We are to forgive every one always. We are to turn the other cheek. We are to rejoice when we are wronged. We are to never say “what an idiot” in our hearts. Anger is sin and must be dealt with ruthlessly. To maintain this standard of heart purity, I worshipped and prayed very regularly and if I felt I had quenched the spirit in any way I would mourn deeply. In many instances, I could not sleep unless I know my heart was totally surrendered. I remember when I was in seminary that if I felt I was somehow unrepentant or lacked conscious contact with God, I would leave class at break and go pray in my room. Little did I know at the time that this life of extreme sensitivity to the orientation of my heart toward love was a good thing.
As I went through the normal experiences of life, for example my disappointment with the leadership of our church, I compromised. I allowed an unresolved resentment into my heart. I openly criticized others in my home with my wife. I became arrogant.
Recently, as I have returned to the Sermon on the Mount and studied it deeply and as I have used the tools of journaling my character faults and my resentments and began to practice unconditional forgiveness and love toward all who have ever wronged me, I have found release. I feel like I am back from a long journey like the prodigal. To outsiders, I was always the most spiritual in the bunch. Never did I stop praying and teaching and preaching. Never was I lacking inspiration or “anointing”. During the last many years, I have preached many great sermons and inspired others to go deeper with God..BUT …my character was not becoming more and more winsome. Instead, I came to a realization that in fact my usefulness to God was being undermine by my arrogance and growing frustration with others.
I have come to realize again that resentments even the most subtle, even the slightest slander of others, even the slightest gossip or lack of unconditional love can rob us of the fullness of the kingdom.
I tell you the truth..if you love only those who agree with you and support you what is that. Do not the worst idolaters do the same. I tell you pray blessing on your enemies. Make peace with your adversaries. Love and bless unconditionally. When you pray and seek forgiveness from God, first forgive all who have wronged you. Turn the other check. Go the extra mile. For your Father sends His rain on the just and the unjust, the wise and the ignorant, the good and the bad. So you too…love your enemies and then you will be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.
Here is the only path to intimacy with God. Here is the beginning of wisdom and the filling of the Spirit. Here only, in this place of no compromise with the perfect law of love, is the place that Jesus calls the Kingdom of Heaven.
God Bless,
brad
About a month or so ago, I began teaching on the Sermon on the Mount. We decided as a congregation to use Celebrate Recovery and other 12 step material in small groups to supplement the Sunday teaching. The results have been wonderful for me.
A little background.
I have been around AA and NA for about 15 years. More recently a friend of mine in SA has been using me as a sponsor or mentor for about the last three years. This relationship has helped me get more intimate exposure to the methods of the 12 steps over the last few years. Then about two years ago a member of our congregation went into recovery and I began to meet regularly with this man. This relationship began to effect my preaching as I began to use some Big Book language from our times together of discipleship. Next, about 18 months ago another man, with 28 years in AA began attending our church. I began a regular discussion of the 12 steps with this man as well. All this led to a recent sermon and small group studies from the Sermon on the Mount which I am preaching which uses AA tools and 12 step language to give applications to the sermons. We are using these tools, basically doing the 12 steps through journaling, in our sermon based small groups.
Well this all brings me to how this is affecting me personally.
My Personal Testimony
When I was a young believer, 1986-1993, I led a truly monastic and missionary lifestyle. It is only after I lost this level of intimacy with God and effectiveness in ministry did I actually realize the value of what I had. In those years many people were being converted and our small groups were growing consistently. I led a discipleship home with some friends and ha a great deal of time for daily prayer and worship. I worked at the church but only worked about 20 hours a week. I believe that if I had understood what we really had in those days and learned to transfer this lifestyle to others, we could have had a far greater and lasting influence for good. But our church got into some hyper-Pentecostalism and I eventually found that I didn’t fit in.
As the church changed and my children got older, I found I was unwilling to raise my children in this church community. My wife and I decided to leave. I found through this process that I was quite injured emotionally. In fact, the way I dressed changed. Looking back at the process, I realize now that for years before I left that church I had begun to gossip or at least speak negatively about some of the church leadership. I was filled with negativity about the entire path the church had taken BUT I was too immature and undiscipled myself to know how to process these resentments about how leadership was directing the church. In short, my response to the process was a compromise of the life of unconditional love that I a been walking in. My heart became bitter and resentful and, now I realize, that it was this compromise with the ways of love and forgiveness that quenched my intimacy with God, my personal life of worship and devotion and ultimately led to a spiritual place that though unobservable to most was far less than I had experienced earlier.
What Actually Happened
When I was a new believer I took the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount very seriously. We are to forgive every one always. We are to turn the other cheek. We are to rejoice when we are wronged. We are to never say “what an idiot” in our hearts. Anger is sin and must be dealt with ruthlessly. To maintain this standard of heart purity, I worshipped and prayed very regularly and if I felt I had quenched the spirit in any way I would mourn deeply. In many instances, I could not sleep unless I know my heart was totally surrendered. I remember when I was in seminary that if I felt I was somehow unrepentant or lacked conscious contact with God, I would leave class at break and go pray in my room. Little did I know at the time that this life of extreme sensitivity to the orientation of my heart toward love was a good thing.
As I went through the normal experiences of life, for example my disappointment with the leadership of our church, I compromised. I allowed an unresolved resentment into my heart. I openly criticized others in my home with my wife. I became arrogant.
Recently, as I have returned to the Sermon on the Mount and studied it deeply and as I have used the tools of journaling my character faults and my resentments and began to practice unconditional forgiveness and love toward all who have ever wronged me, I have found release. I feel like I am back from a long journey like the prodigal. To outsiders, I was always the most spiritual in the bunch. Never did I stop praying and teaching and preaching. Never was I lacking inspiration or “anointing”. During the last many years, I have preached many great sermons and inspired others to go deeper with God..BUT …my character was not becoming more and more winsome. Instead, I came to a realization that in fact my usefulness to God was being undermine by my arrogance and growing frustration with others.
I have come to realize again that resentments even the most subtle, even the slightest slander of others, even the slightest gossip or lack of unconditional love can rob us of the fullness of the kingdom.
I tell you the truth..if you love only those who agree with you and support you what is that. Do not the worst idolaters do the same. I tell you pray blessing on your enemies. Make peace with your adversaries. Love and bless unconditionally. When you pray and seek forgiveness from God, first forgive all who have wronged you. Turn the other check. Go the extra mile. For your Father sends His rain on the just and the unjust, the wise and the ignorant, the good and the bad. So you too…love your enemies and then you will be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.
Here is the only path to intimacy with God. Here is the beginning of wisdom and the filling of the Spirit. Here only, in this place of no compromise with the perfect law of love, is the place that Jesus calls the Kingdom of Heaven.
God Bless,
brad
Friday, June 24, 2005
Book Meme
I have been asked by Brother Maynard, the old book meme questions:
So here are my answers.
1. Total number of books I own or have owned:
I love books and like to go to my mother’s house and look at all the books, rare books etc she has. BUT I do not personally own many books. I only have a few dozen maybe 50 books that are mine in my house where I live. I own another home and in the attic there are say 250 books or so. I do like to go to book stores and look at books but I might buy only a few books a year. I went many years without reading much of anything as I found reading to interfere with actual ministry and prayer. For me at least.
2. Last book I bought:
Sermon on the Mount by Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard.
I am preaching through the Sermon on the Mount and thought I should have some inspiration. I like the Lloyd-Jones far more than the Dallas Willard. I also bought all the Celebrate Recovery Stuff too that I use to make worksheets of questions for sermon based small groups.
3. Last book I read:
The 12 Steps and the 12 Traditions and the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. The Big Book is both a great discipleship manual and a great biography. Before that I really enjoyed “Proper Confidence” by Leslie Newbiggen. Just a note: I read some of the 12 and 12 this morning and tend to read Big Book pretty regularly. If you know how to decipher the Big Book, I think it is a fantasitc application of the Sermon on the Mount.
4. Five books that mean a lot to me:
The Little Flowers of Saint Francis- Brother Leo
I am a bit of a Francis devotee. I love the rules and the mirror of perfection and the Little Flowers and any biography that emphasizes Francis as a Reformer and evangelist.
Romans – Lloyd-Jones
Lloyd-Jones has had a big influence on me. I have read a great deal of his sermons. He led me to expository preaching, a love for biography, and reformed theology. I recommend especially the book on Romans 8 especially verses 14-16. Great use of biography
Stride Toward Freedom – Martin Luther King
This is the autobiographical story of the Montgomery bus boycott. My wife and I read this during our engagement and it filled our hearts with prayers and tears. It is a great story of courage and faith by a beautiful people.
On Religious Affections – Jonathan Edwards
I read this when I was really in a low point of my ministry. For me, these great reformed works help me understand the true goals of discipleship. Here is a great theologian and a great pastor asking hard questions about how to discern a genuine work of grace. I have seen destructive enthusiasm in my life and have been blessed by reading the wisdom of the great reformed minds of the past. These books challenge all of us to think deeply about the authenticity of our spiritual experience and relationship with God.
Alcoholics Anonymous (also known as "The Big Book")
Simply the greatest discipleship program I have ever read. Also, ranks as one of the greatest interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount. Filled with a heart of total surrender from cover to cover. The Oxford Groups from which the 12 Steps came were extreme Methodists and the program was developed during the height of modernism. I love it. Bill W. was a great evangelist to the poorest of the poor.
Total Surrender – Mother Teresa
Another life of contemplation worked out amongst the poorest of the poor.
5. Two major books when I was a kid:
The Autobiography of Malcolm X - This work culminated my youthful worldview in college (as a pagan). Prior to this book I would say my biggest influences would have been Grapes of Wrath and the music of Bob Marley. Big influences as a youth.
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man – Joyce. I think my early readings of Joyce (I read Ulysses in high school too) got me into this awareness of my inner world. Just walking down the street reveals an infinite world of experience. Describing inner experience is key to good preaching and helping others enter into the honesty necessary for an authentic spiritual life. Joyce turned me onto the idea of describing and letting flow the inner life onto the page or into a sermon or out any creative process.
People I want to tag:
mojoey
Ben Witherington
Steven Shields
mar13 at I12know
So here are my answers.
1. Total number of books I own or have owned:
I love books and like to go to my mother’s house and look at all the books, rare books etc she has. BUT I do not personally own many books. I only have a few dozen maybe 50 books that are mine in my house where I live. I own another home and in the attic there are say 250 books or so. I do like to go to book stores and look at books but I might buy only a few books a year. I went many years without reading much of anything as I found reading to interfere with actual ministry and prayer. For me at least.
2. Last book I bought:
Sermon on the Mount by Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard.
I am preaching through the Sermon on the Mount and thought I should have some inspiration. I like the Lloyd-Jones far more than the Dallas Willard. I also bought all the Celebrate Recovery Stuff too that I use to make worksheets of questions for sermon based small groups.
3. Last book I read:
The 12 Steps and the 12 Traditions and the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. The Big Book is both a great discipleship manual and a great biography. Before that I really enjoyed “Proper Confidence” by Leslie Newbiggen. Just a note: I read some of the 12 and 12 this morning and tend to read Big Book pretty regularly. If you know how to decipher the Big Book, I think it is a fantasitc application of the Sermon on the Mount.
4. Five books that mean a lot to me:
The Little Flowers of Saint Francis- Brother Leo
I am a bit of a Francis devotee. I love the rules and the mirror of perfection and the Little Flowers and any biography that emphasizes Francis as a Reformer and evangelist.
Romans – Lloyd-Jones
Lloyd-Jones has had a big influence on me. I have read a great deal of his sermons. He led me to expository preaching, a love for biography, and reformed theology. I recommend especially the book on Romans 8 especially verses 14-16. Great use of biography
Stride Toward Freedom – Martin Luther King
This is the autobiographical story of the Montgomery bus boycott. My wife and I read this during our engagement and it filled our hearts with prayers and tears. It is a great story of courage and faith by a beautiful people.
On Religious Affections – Jonathan Edwards
I read this when I was really in a low point of my ministry. For me, these great reformed works help me understand the true goals of discipleship. Here is a great theologian and a great pastor asking hard questions about how to discern a genuine work of grace. I have seen destructive enthusiasm in my life and have been blessed by reading the wisdom of the great reformed minds of the past. These books challenge all of us to think deeply about the authenticity of our spiritual experience and relationship with God.
Alcoholics Anonymous (also known as "The Big Book")
Simply the greatest discipleship program I have ever read. Also, ranks as one of the greatest interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount. Filled with a heart of total surrender from cover to cover. The Oxford Groups from which the 12 Steps came were extreme Methodists and the program was developed during the height of modernism. I love it. Bill W. was a great evangelist to the poorest of the poor.
Total Surrender – Mother Teresa
Another life of contemplation worked out amongst the poorest of the poor.
5. Two major books when I was a kid:
The Autobiography of Malcolm X - This work culminated my youthful worldview in college (as a pagan). Prior to this book I would say my biggest influences would have been Grapes of Wrath and the music of Bob Marley. Big influences as a youth.
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man – Joyce. I think my early readings of Joyce (I read Ulysses in high school too) got me into this awareness of my inner world. Just walking down the street reveals an infinite world of experience. Describing inner experience is key to good preaching and helping others enter into the honesty necessary for an authentic spiritual life. Joyce turned me onto the idea of describing and letting flow the inner life onto the page or into a sermon or out any creative process.
People I want to tag:
mojoey
Ben Witherington
Steven Shields
mar13 at I12know
Tim Theule
God bless,
brad
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