An Ugly Lie

An ugly lie is running wild in our churches & in our lives. It's the reason why there doesn't seem to be real connections & relationships happening. It's why so many worship leaders are frustrated that those they lead seem to be going through the motions or disengaged. It's part of the reason so many believers & church members are so tired. Ready for the lie that we so often believe? Here it is:

Spiritual Maturity=Self-Sufficiency

Now remember, you would never say you believe this with your lips, but what about with your life? We sometimes think that a solid, mature Christian either has no problems or can handle all of the problems that they do have. However, deep inside, in those places where we actually face reality, we know our lives are a wreck, but we can't let anybody know. What will they think? After all, a growing, mature believer shouldn't deal with this. So we try to fix ourselves. The only problem is that we couldn't fix ourselves before Jesus, & we still can't fix ourselves after Jesus. Only Jesus transforms us. Could it be that the heights of spiritual maturity are actually marked by radical self-insufficiency, a radical awareness of our deep, constant need for the work of God in & through us? 

Consider these words from Lamentation 3:22-23, "Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness." How about that? God extends new mercy to His people everyday. Maybe that's because we need His mercy poured out, like new, everyday. We have to guard ourselves & our churches from the lie that the goal is self-sufficiency. In fact, it's just the opposite; we're to grow more & more dependent on God as we become more grounded & more mature in our faith.

AND

"The evil habit of seeking 'God and' effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation. In the ‘and’ lies our great woe. If we omit the ‘and’, we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing."

These are the words of A.W. Tozer in his classic The Pursuit of God. They were written well over 60 years ago but are just as relevant to our 21st century world. Most believers fail to encounter & experience God because they are seeking God and something else. In so doing, they effectively negate the part of them that might pursue God. God requires a single minded pursuit of Him. Pursuing His will, His plan, His protection, or His blessings is no substitution for simply pursuing Him. In pursuing Him, we find Him, we come to know Him, & eventually we find & experience all those other things that we have longed to find.

What is your "and"? What have you attached to your pursuit of God? How can you cut it loose & simply & purely pursue God & God alone?

Opinion Vs. Perspective

Here's a post I shared previously on another site. I thought it might be helpful to those of you in any form of leadership.

I had an interesting conversation the other day about the varying opinions that anyone in leadership inevitably faces. Sometimes, literally every position on an issue or idea is represented in a group, & sometimes positions you didn't think existed are represented! 

So how do you know which opinions are more worthy of your time & recognition? After all, a leader can't act on every opinion that is expressed, much less the ones that are never voiced. One of the most effective ideas I've stumbled across (and believe me I stumbled onto it) is to draw a distinction between people who have an opinion & people who have perspective. It may sound like I'm splitting hairs, but there's something to this.

Think about it. Everybody has opinions. Even if it's a topic that we haven't given a lot of thought to, if someone asks what we think, we'll give our opinion on it. There's nothing necessarily wrong with it. It's just how we are. However, perspective requires something more than just talking about what we think.

Perspective Requires Investment.

People with opinions "think". People with perspective "know". People with perspective have invested themselves into something enough that their opinion is actually based on experience. You don't have to have that in order to form an opinion. There's nothing wrong with having an opinion & sometimes there's nothing wrong with voicing it, but the best opinions are really built on having a realistic perspective of the situation. Investment leads to perspective which leads to discernment. 

So the next time you're confronted with a bunch of "opinions", try to figure out which opinion is really perspective, & that's relatively easy. Simply ask, "Is this person invested?" Are they invested in you? Are they invested in the ministry? Are they invested in the business? Whatever the issue is, are they really invested? Not merely emotionally invested, but have they put in some sweat equity & time equity? Have they invested themselves into it?

You Are Invited

This weekend we started our Christmas message series at Zebulon Baptist Church. In this series we're looking at what a lot of people consider to be one of the more boring sections of Scripture. However, if you dig into it, you'll discover it's one of the most fascinating. In Matthew 1, the gospel writer is working to establish Jesus' bloodline in order to assert that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. However, as Matthew records Jesus' family tree, he includes people that for one don't have to be included, & secondly, that you wouldn't want to include if you didn't have to. These people are shady, scandalous characters lurking in Jesus' heritage. As you look you discover that Jesus' pedigree is filled with scandalous, sinful people. And these folks aren't run of the mill sinners. These people are monumental, award winning kind of sinners. So why would Matthew include these people if he didn't have to?

The answer to why Matthew included these people in Jesus' story is found in Matthew's story. Because you see, Matthew lived that kind of scandalous, shady life. He was a religious & social outcast because of the life he chose. In fact, Matthew's level of sin had its own category in his culture. Imagine "those people" that you sort of set aside because of their sin & set them apart from the rest of us sinners; well, that's who Matthew was. Then we see something happen in Matthew 9 that would have shocked everyone, including Jesus' disciples. Jesus invited Matthew to follow Him. That's right, Jesus, the perfect, holy, sinless Son of God, invited Matthew, the tax collector, the outcast, the irredeemable, to follow Him, to be a part of Jesus' inner circle. When you think about that, all of a sudden it becomes clear why Matthew would choose these scandalous characters in Jesus' family tree: Matthew understood them. Matthew was one of them. To him it made perfect since to include the scandalous & shameful in Jesus' bloodline & thus in the Christmas story.

"Sinners Are A Part Of Jesus' Story 

Because They're The Point Of Jesus' Story."

Matthew didn't leave out the scandal that surrounded Jesus' family because most of us have some sort of skeleton in the closet as well. Most all of us have backstories we would rather not talk about. Some of us have family scandals, & here's the good news. Jesus had that stuff lurking in His backstory too. Jesus came for all those scandals & all the skeletons that we have in our closets. All the mistakes, all the foolish decisions, all the sin, that's why Jesus came. He came so that your backstory could have a happy ending. He came so that those shady, scandalous lives could be redeemed through His perfect, sinless sacrifice. It's only natural that a man like Matthew would understand & make sure that from the beginning of his gospel that everyone who read it would realize that Jesus came from a long line of sinners, but He came for those sinners. That means we are all invited, just like Matthew, to trust & to follow the perfect, sinless Son of God. How will you respond to that invitation?