commUNITY

Everyone wants to be part of something. We all want to have our place that we fit in. Whether it's with our friends, or our jobs, or our families, we long for community.

I believe that the desire for community is something that God has put inside of us. He designed us to be in community with Him, and with other believers. In Galatians 6, Paul exhorts the church to bear each others burdens, and to do good to everyone, especially the other believers.

Paul tells the church that we're in this life together. We don't need to try and go at it alone.  The sad thing is that this seems to be something that the church has missed. Instead of bearing each others burdens, instead of seeking to do good to everyone, we judge, we condemn, and we gossip about whatever sin "they" fell into.

God's church should be the greatest community on earth, but far to often we reduce it to what would be expected of children. We miss the point that we're supposed to help each other, and we end up pushing each other down with the false idea that we're better than them.

Forgive me if it sounds like I'm ranting, and I know that I'm just as guilty of this as the next person. But I believe that it is time for a change. It is time that we raise the bar of community in the church.

If you read through the book of Acts, the church was a beautiful example of the community that God calls us to, not without fault, but unified. It was the way that they lived, and the way that they treated the people around them that brought people into the church. The ones looking in from the outside witnessed the community, the grace, and the love in the church, and they craved it. People were being added to the church daily.

Today, there are still people looking in from the outside, but what they often witness is something far from community. The way that God's people interact with each other, and with the world is no longer what brings people in. It has become what keeps people away.

Christians are known today for being hypocritical and judgemental. That breaks my heart, for the people who won't give Jesus a chance because His church has misrepresented Him, and for the church who has apathetically allowed itself to fall to such a place.

There is grace. God is a God of love, and forgiveness. I pray that as you read these words, let Jesus infiltrate your heart and change how you interact with those around you. Let's become the community that shows the world Jesus.

Lord, we aren't worthy. We aren't good. We are empty and in such need of You.
Fill us, equip us, break our hearts for this world.
Let Your name be glorified in Your church, amen.

Outsiders

I think that every one of us at one point or another has felt like we were an outsider. We've all felt like we didn't belong. Whether it was true or not, we've all had those feelings, and nobody likes that. Nobody likes to feel out of place, or unwanted.

If you look at the Bible, that's why Jesus came! Because of the sin in our lives, we were separate from God. We had alienated ourselves, making ourselves outsiders, we couldn't go near God. So Jesus came and He died on the cross to make the payment that was needed for our sin, so that we could have that relationship with Him. So that we could enter into that fellowship with our Creator.

The more that you look at the Gospels, the more you will see that Jesus came for everyone, but specifically the outsiders. There was a religious "in crowd" made up of Pharisees, and teachers, and scribes, but Jesus didn't pay too much attention to them. His harshest words were in their direction.

More often than not, we see Jesus with the people who were social outcasts for whatever reason. He hung out with tax collectors, and prostitutes. Jesus made a point to reach the outsiders.

One of my favorite stories is in Mark 1:40-45. A leprous man approaches Jesus, and falls at His feet crying out, "If You will, You can make me clean." In that day, leprousy would make you a total outcast. You were forbidden to come too close to people, and if you broke that barrier, they would begin to throw rocks at you. It was impossible to be more of a social outcast.

This man runs up to Jesus, and falls in front of Him. Everyone is waiting to see what Jesus will do. Will He spit on him? Will He throw a rock at him? Will He even notice this lowly, disfigured outsider?

Verse 41 says "Moved with pity, He stretched out His hand and touched him and said to him, "I will; be clean."

Jesus doesn't ignore this guy. Jesus doesn't insult this man, or throw a rock at him. Jesus TOUCHES him.  Just think about that for a moment. Imagine the reaction of the crowd. They might have even been holding their rocks, waiting for Jesus to give them permission to throw them at him. But instead, He touches this man.

Jesus did the last thing that they expected, but exactly what this man needed.  Jesus wasn't worried about the crowd's reaction. He saw the need of this man, and He reached out and touched him.

Jesus broke the  awkwardness for this guy. Instead of leaving feeling out of place, he left healed, with a part in what God was doing. Now he belongs.

God wants to do the same thing in your life. That's why when Jesus died on the cross, the veil to the Holy of Holies was ripped in two from top to bottom. There is nothing keeping us from access to God. The sin that blocked us from Him has now been paid for.

In Jesus, you belong. In Jesus, you have purpose. In Jesus, you're no longer an outsider, but a child of the King of Kings.

Are you living on the outside? God loves you so much that you can't even comprehend it. So much that He willingly sent His Son Jesus to die in your place. Jesus died in your place so that you could have unrestricted access to God. Take hold of that! Enter into that fellowship, that community with God.

Maybe you're reading this and you're thinking, "That's nice and all, but I'm not on the outside.... I have an awesome relationship with Jesus."

If that's the case for you, then I offer you the same challenge that convicts me today. Are you reflecting Jesus in the way you treat people? Jesus reached out to the outsiders, He touched the untouchables.

Are you following the example that He set for His church, or are you following the example of the Pharisees, who were ready to throw rocks at someone who needed a touch from Jesus?

For Freedom

Galatians 5:1 says, "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." 

The words that stick out to me there are "stand firm" Stand firm. Seems simple enough right? The idea behind that is like an army facing an enemy. The army that stands firm is an army that refuses to back down, they refuse to be defeated, they refuse to even yield an inch to their foes. As Christians, we're called to stand firm. We have an enemy, and Jesus has given us the power to stand firm against him.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5, "For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ."

I love that verse, because it doesn't just say that we stand firm, but that we attack. We take our own prisoners. I think if we are all honest, there are things in our lives that satan has managed to get a grip on. Areas that we haven't stood firm, and now they are enemy territory. We are called to take back that enemy territory in the name of Jesus. Galatians 5:13 tells us that we are called to freedom. Keep in mind, partial freedom isn't really freedom. We're either free or we aren't. The freedom that we have been offered was given to us by Jesus when He laid down His life on the cross for our sakes.

Jesus bought our freedom.
Don't give satan the victory that Jesus died to purchase. 

This freedom that has been given to us is something that we must fight for. We must choose to stand firm against the repeated attacks of our enemy. We need to refuse to give him any ground, because that ground was purchased with Jesus' blood. Jesus owns that territory, and He has given it to us for the taking. Let us rise up in faith, and reclaim what the devil has stolen.  

Traffic.

Have you ever been stuck in traffic? For a long time? I remember driving home from Christmas last year… It was supposed to be a ten hour drive, but it became a thirteen hour drive. For three hours, I didn’t go more than ten miles an hour. We were inching along. It was terrible. I hate traffic. I was just ready to get home. I think that we all hate traffic, because it keeps us from reaching our destination. It makes us take longer to get where we’re going.

Traffic keeps us from our goal.

I think all of us have some Spiritual traffic in our lives. I know I do.

We all have things in our life that keep us from becoming more like Jesus.

If we were to rate our walks with Jesus on a scale from 1 – 10, none of us would have a perfect 10. We won’t have perfect 10s until we’re with Jesus in Heaven, and that’s because there is traffic here that keeps us from Him.

So, what’s your traffic?

What is it in your life that is keeping you from getting to Jesus.

Galatians 5:1 – 

"For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and don't submit again to a yoke of slavery."

When Paul says, “Don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery” he’s saying, don’t let the traffic slow you down.

Jesus knows about the traffic in your life. That's why He came and died on the cross.

His death paid the price that you owed for your sin, so that through faith in Him, you have the power to bypass all of that traffic. 

It doesn't happen naturally, we don't just end up past the sin in our lives.  

Sin isn't something we outgrow.  

We have to choose to fight against it, we have to choose to put on Christ daily.

I love how Paul says it in Romans 13:14, 

"But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." 

We have to stop feeding our flesh. We have to cut out the things in our lives that create traffic, keeping us from Jesus.

God wants to take you to a deeper place in your walk with Him. Will you remove the sin, and bypass the traffic in your life to get to Him?

The Big Question

In three of the four gospels, the time when Jesus asks the disciples who they think He is. He asks them who the crowds say He is first. He asks, what have you heard of me? The crowds say that He is John the baptist, or possibly Elijah.

Then Jesus gets down to the big question. "Who do you say that I am?"

Peter chimes in giving an accurate response, "You are the Christ." Peter knows that Jesus is the promised Messiah, come to save His people.

This story can seem insignificant, and it can often be blown over, but I think it deserves a few moments of reflection. In reality, Jesus asked the most important question that we could ever answer.

Who do you say Jesus is?

What we think of Jesus is the one thing that will define who we are and how we live. The weight that we give to Jesus' words and actions will find itself duplicated in our lives.

What I mean by this is that our lives will reflect how seriously we take Jesus.

Jesus said to love one another as He loved us. He called us to be lights in a dark world. He calls us to die to self, to pick up our cross daily and follow Him. How seriously do you take those words?

We don't just need to give weight to Jesus' words, but to His character as well.

Jesus promises that He loves us, that He will provide and never fail us. He promises to be with us always.
He promises to give us the strength that we need. He promises to never give us more than we can handle.

Do we trust those promises about God? Our view of who God is and what He says will define the way that we live our lives.

Dig into His Word, see His character. Get to know Jesus, and who He really is. I promise it will change you.

Dead Branches

Picture this scene with me. There is a tree in the woods, it was knocked down years ago and now it is just a rotting log. The inside is hollowed out, there might even be some animals living in it. Now someone comes up and sees this tree, and they get rather upset that the tree doesn't have any fruit on it. They see a branch that has fallen off of the dead tree, and they frantically try to re-attach the branch, saying it was what was best for the tree. It was what the tree needed.

If we saw this happening, we would think that the person in this story was completely insane. You can't fix a dead tree by re-attaching its branches! Nor is it expected that a dead tree would be bearing fruit. We would lock this person up in a mental asylum!

But before we put them in a straight jacket, let's pause and consider something. How often do we do this with people? We see our unsaved friends living like the world, and we get upset that they aren't living like Christians. We should not expect people who don't know Jesus to want to reflect Him. Or we see our friends from church, and they are dealing with a sin.

I am speaking for myself here, but I believe that this is true for many of us. We are so quick to notice dead branches, or a lack of fruit, and immediately we assume that the problem can be solved by gluing fruit onto the branches, or trying to re-attach those branches. Lack of fruit and dead branches are a completely normal thing to see when a tree isn't attached to its roots. If the tree isn't in the ground, the problem isn't that there is no fruit! The problem is that it isn't planted!

We all need to be planted in Christ, every aspect of our life will flow directly from our relationship with Him. When we notice an area that isn't right, dead branches in our lives or in the life of someone around us, I think it's vital that we look past the branches to the roots. If the roots aren't attached, we have found our problem.

Lack of fruit is still cause for concern in a Christian, as are dead branches. But those problems rarely cause themselves, and if we aren't willing to look past what we see and get to the root issue, we won't help anyone.

Jesus talks about something similar in John 15:1-11

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full."

Don't Sell Yourself Short

C.S. Lewis once said "The man who is most effective in this world is the man who is the most focused on the next."

How true a statement, yet I think we have missed that path in many ways. Please don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that people aren't focused on Heaven, and if you are focused on Heaven, I commend you.

I am only trying to make the point, that for many of us, myself often included, we have allowed our focus to be pulled down to this world. When we think of being pulled down by the world, our brains automatically think of sin. We think of the things in the world that want to pull us away from God. What we rarely think of are the things that are good, but not intended to be our focus and ultimate goal.

I find myself often getting caught up in serving, and all of the things that our Christian culture has around us today. Serving isn't bad, Bible studies aren't bad, reading isn't bad. However when we replace our goal of being face to face with Jesus with those things, they can become idols just like anything else. When our goal is to have a good ministry, or to read the next Christian book, we sell ourselves short.

God has offered us Himself, and not just from a distance, but in an up close and personal way. We can approach the throne of grace boldly.

Why should we trade God for anything of this world, even the aspects of life that pertain to His Kingdom.

When our focus shifts from Christ, to the world around us, we burn out. We live in a dying and hopeless world. Christ is the only hope for the world around us. If our focus isn't on Him, this world will steal our hope.

You might be asking the question, "Don't we still need to be concerned with those things?"

Yes, we do need to be concerned with them. Our ministries, the areas that we serve God in, and the different things that we do (that aren't sin) are still good things to do.

The issue isn't as much of what we are doing, as where our focus is. When our focus is on this world, it breaks us down. When our focus is on Christ, He compels us to serve, and His power enables us to serve excellently.

1 Corinthians 13 says that now we see dimly, but then it will be face to face. We will be united with God, and worship the One who gave it all for us. That is our hope and goal. Don't settle for a goal that this world can satisfy.