Haven’t been able to pull up any original inspiration today. So let me recommend a dose from Nick Vojicic. He’s got a Croatian name, an Aussie heritage, and a kingdom story. People like this leave me shaking my head at the wisdom and grace of God.
Click this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DxlJWJ_WfA&feature=related
Lionel Whiston was a dapper eighty-some year old saint when I met him thirty years ago. He was one of those uncommon individuals who had a gift for pulling people in, drawing them out, and sending them off with a gift. And he preached mighty good sermons, too. But the thing I remember most about Lionel was the gift he gave me that day: a happy revelation that old age was nothing to fear. If I could age like him, then each birthday would celebrate another year of becoming more like Jesus.
That’s my hope. Bill Gothard says that “The fear of old age is the false assumption that I still have many years of life ahead of me.” Only God knows the number of my days, but for this day I’m setting my hope on aging like Lionel, with my ear snuggled ever closer to the heartbeat of Jesus.
Been vaguely aware for some time that when it comes to the Kingdom, I’m a whole lot handier at talking about it than I am at actually living it. I try to ignore that awkward truth, but it’s becoming more of a burr in my backside while I go on talking. And talking.
This week I’ve been reading Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne, a book that my friend Bryan says is “the most dangerous book I’ve ever read.” Shane is a young man who’s actually putting feet to his words, living with the homeless, standing up against injustice, and caring for the poor. He says he’s not interested “in a Christianity that offers these (poor families) only mansions and streets of Gold in heaven, when all they really want is a bed for their kids now. And many Christians have an extra one.” That, right there, is the kingdom. And I really am wanting to find my place in it. But see? There I go with words again.
“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know the minute we understand, we’re obliged to act accordingly. Take any of the words of the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that, my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to be sure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close … It is dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.” – Soren Kierkegaard
It’s been about six weeks since I read The Shack. And last count I’d given away seventeen copies of it to friends. So for me to plug this book is a no-brainer. If you’re anything like me, it’ll blow the lid off your concept of the Trinity, illuminate the profound beauty of the Godhead, and carry your love of the Father to new heights.
Eugene Peterson, (The Message), says “This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyon’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!” I can’t remember ever seeing so many people being so deeply impacted by a book other than the Bible. So if you’re looking for something worthwhile to read…
The kingdom is the only true reality. It is life as God intended it to be. The Kingdom is everything in the cosmos working as it was designed, from brain cells to business calls, from muscles to music. This is why Jesus said his yoke “is easy” and his burden “is light.” (Matt. 11:30) To live by truth is easy. Respect gravity. Expect to reap what you sow. Don’t step in front of a moving vehicle. Don’t spend what you don’t have. Treat others like you’d want to be treated. Pay your bills. But to resist reality is to ask for trouble.
Societies founded on falsehoods crumble and self-destruct. Communism, Materialism, and Postmodernism all fail because they haven’t the glue of truth to hold them together. No need for God to destroy those societies any more than for Him to have to destroy a person who’s trying to live on raw sewerage. The choice is the judgment. But the Kingdom! Ah! It is unshakable (Heb. 12:28). It is the house built upon a rock. Storms may rage against the Truth, but they cannot change it. And the Truth of the universe is the bedrock of the Kingdom.
Jesus told us to go out and make disciples. Instead we’ve made converts.
Scott McKnight, in The Jesus Creed says it’s the difference between a birth certificate and a driver’s license: “If conversion is like a birth certificate, we produce babies who need to be pushed around in strollers. If it’s like a driver’s license, we produce adults who can operate on life’s pathways.” This probably explains why so many here in the Bible belt are endlessly running from church to church seeking some place “we really get fed.” People who carry driver’s licenses generally also know how to go to the fridge, drive to the supermarket, and cook up a meal.
McKnight goes on to ask, “When was Peter actually converted?” Was is:
- When he left his boat and followed Jesus?
- When he fell before Jesus and confessed he was a “sinful man”?
- When he confessed “you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”?
- When he confessed Jesus as Lord?
- When Jesus breathed on the disciples with the Holy Spirit?
- When the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost?
It’s a tricky question for us because nowhere is it actually recorded that Peter said a “sinner’s prayer.” And that’s what seals it for most of us evangelicals. Undoubtedly this is something we need to wrestle with. What differentiates a disciple from a convert? And could it be that our “how do I get to heaven?” mentality lends itself to conversion over discipleship?
I believe this might well be one of the reasons we’ve lost sight of the Kingdom.
The centerpiece of civilization and the hope of Adam’s race is a child born in a manger. What a wondrous world.
I’ve had a sweet Christmas with family and friends in Maryland. The fingers are healing nicely, as well as the chest cold that’s kept me close to my Mom’s house for most of the week. The thought that keeps returning to me is the idea that the incarnation of the God-man Jesus brings meaning to all of life, from Christmas cards and pumpkin pies to Salvation Army ringers and good movies. God has entered our world and – by his presence – made all of it holy.
It’s an amazing place to live when once we’re able to see it.
It’s always humbling to be at the receiving end of so many prayers. Just thirty hours after my accident with the garage door, God restored my fingers enough to go through with Sunday evening’s concert. The fingers were still a little sensitive and weak. But He made up the difference as He always does.
“My grace is all you need, for my power is greatest when you are weak.”
II Corinthians 12:9
In the end, it was a warm family time together with the church. Formality was out, and the joy was in sharing our imperfect lives and gifts in the fellowship of the Spirit. Thanks for the prayers! Tomorrow (Wednesday), I head home to Maryland for a week or so. Hope we get some snow.
Today I smashed the hang out of my fingers. I creamed ’em like a fool when I tried to lower a garage door by sticking my fingers into the handy little crack between the panels. So when the door came down, the crack closed, and I was left with the three middle fingers of each hand stuck in the door while I yelled, danced and pleaded for someone to help. Now my digits are traumatized with bruised and bleeding fingernails on each hand, and I’m typing this entry very gently, favoring certain fingers like a dog with a wounded leg.
The bummer is, tomorrow night I have a special Christmas performance. So I’ve enlisted some prayer warriors, and I’m believing for God to heal me up enough to go through with it. It’s really amazing how often things like this happen to me before a concert. It makes me feel like there’s some kind of spiritual assignment against me playing in public.
I was thinking about this today, wondering why people connect with my music in the first place. It’s definitely not my technique. You can find people all over the county who effortlessly play circles around me, executing flawless passages and dazzling arpeggios. The only thing I can figure out is, maybe it’s my passion. I have a tendency of losing myself in the music and forgetting about the world around me. And people seem to like that. We love passion because we’re created in the image of a passionate God. Yet our lives can be so incredibly mundane. So when an audience hears someone get lost in some foggy Neverland, and then emerge on the other end beating the keyboard black and blue, they respond.
Sometimes I get choked up, or even cry right in the middle of a piece. Other times I’ve played hard enough to leave a trail of blood on the keyboard. (And sometimes I make loud, bombastic mistakes that cause the audience to squirm and twist in their seats). Of course this can be embarrassing, but if I live in fear of tenderness, or even of large, monstrous mistakes, everything will come across sounding tentative and tame. And neither life nor music was meant to be played that way.
I’ve been reading The Jesus Creed by Scott McKnight. Essentially the “Jesus Creed” says “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27)
McKnight says that when the Creed is translated into prayer, it becomes the Lord’s Prayer. When it’s translated into a story it becomes the good Samaritan, and when it’s translated into a society it becomes the table of hospitality, which includes tax collectors, prostitutes, notorious sinners, and people we normally wouldn’t invite into our homes.
Years ago God put it in my heart to invite the residents of a neighborhood “boarding house” over for a proper meal. The across-the-street residents of the home were well known cast-offs, drug users, handicapped, and loners who had no place else to go. So they lived in these cheap quarters, paying weekly rates for a roof over their head.
It turned into a rich evening of friendship which remains in my memory as one of those sweet moments of Jesus’ presence. I had no agenda, I didn’t present the Four Spiritual Laws to them, nor even try to manipulate the conversation around to giving a gospel presentation. Still… not long afterwards, one of the guys called me over to talk about his need for Christ. He was an addict, and he suspected he may have been HIV infected. But he knew Jesus loved him, and he wanted to make his peace.
I miss doing radical things like that. Now I stay in an upscale neighborhood, (compliments of my generous friends who’ve welcomed me into their pool house), and spend almost all my time with my church family, who are positively amazing people! But I’m longing to re-engage with people on the outside of the church circle again. I’m not doing a very good job of that since leaving Sarajevo. And I miss the way I invariably meet Jesus in those settings.
Dispatches from the Shadowlands 