As You Are Going

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
~Matthew 28:19-20

There have been many commentaries that spend a lot of time talking about the form of the verb “to go” in the Great Commission, focusing on the “go” or translating it “as you are going” but God has impressed it on my heart in a new way these last few weeks as I have been in Swaziland. In this new ministry context, I have had to be creative about discipleship and conversations with people as I am going.
In the US, our discipleship is centered around food...think about it - you meet at a coffee shop for Bible study, you have people over for prayer & dessert, you invite people over for dinner to invest in their lives. But how do you do discipleship in a culture where many of the people only eat one meal a day? And where people don't have money for those types of things, let alone transportation or even coffee shops?!
I have had to get creative about the ways I am pouring into people, being intentional about who I invite with me as I run an errand, being intentional about what we talk about while carrying out mundane tasks. And God is stretching me to grow in this way.
Last week, a few of my most significant spiritual conversations with people were while waiting at the hospital, while driving 30 minutes to a care point, while ringing out laundry, while waiting for glass to be cut at the hardware store, while shopping for groceries.
Who are you taking time to pour in to as you are going?

Profile of the Lukewarm

As I was sipping my lukewarm coffee this morning, I was reminded of Revelation 3:16, where God describes the stagnant faith of one of the seven churches. Francis Chan lists out the characteristics of a Lukewarm Christian in his book "Crazy Love" and they are good to reflect on as we can so easily slip into comfortable Christianity.

Lukewarm people:
1. attend church fairly regularly
2. give their money to charity and to the church...as long as it doesn’t impinge on their standard of living.
3. tend to choose what is popular over what is right when they are in conflict.
4. don’t really want to be saved from their sin; they want only to be saved from the penalty of their sin.
5. are moved by stories of people who do radical things for Christ, yet they do not act
6. rarely share their faith with their neighbors, coworkers, or friends.
7. gauge their morality or “goodness” by comparing themselves to the secular world.
8. say they love Jesus, and that He is a part of their lives...but only a part
9. love God but they do not love Him with all of their heart, soul, and strength
10. love others but do not seek to love others as much as they love themselves.
11. will serve God and others, but there are limits to how far they will go or how much time, money, and energy they are willing to give.
12. think about life on earth much more often than eternity in heaven.
13. are thankful for their luxuries and comforts, and rarely consider trying to give as much as possible to the poor.
14. do what is necessary to keep themselves from feeling too guilty.
15. are continually concerned with playing it safe; they are slaves to the god of control.
16. feel secure because they attend church, made a profession of faith, were baptized, come from a Christian family, vote Republican, or live in America.
17. do not live by faith; their lives are structured so they never have to.
18. probably drink and swear less than average, but besides that, they really aren’t very different from your typical unbeliever.

Suffering: A Means Of Grace In The Hands Of God

"Even suffering is a means of grace in the hands of God. In Judges 3:1-2 God leaves other nations in the promised land 'to teach war' to his people. As each generation confronted hostile armies, it was faced with the need to trust God for itself. Adversity tests, strengthens, and personalizes faith. SInful desires can lurk in our hearts unnoticed because those desires are neither threatened nor thwarted. But suffering stirs the calm waters of latent sinful desires. It reveals the true state of our hearts. It's God's diagnostic tool, preparing the way for the medicine of gospel truth. Deuteronomy 8:2 says, 'You shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart.' Horatius Bonar comments:
'The trial did not create the evil: it merely brought out what was there already, unnoticed and unfelt, like a torpid adder. Then the heart's deep fountains were broken up, and streams of pollution came rushing out, black as Hell...Even so it is with the saints still. God chastens them that He may draw forth the evil that is lying concealed and unsuspected within...When calamity breaks over them like a tempest, then the hidden evils of their heart awakens.'
So suffering always presents us with a choice.
We can get frustrated, angry, bitter, or despondent as our desire for control, success, love, or health gets threatened. Or we can take hold of God in a new way, finding our joy in him and comfort in his promises."

From You Can Change by Tim Chester

How Do I Think??

If someone tells me to think about something, what do I do? How long can I realistically think about it before my mind wanders down some random rabbit trail? My ADD mind often has trouble focusing on one thing for a long time, unless I am in a blank room with no sounds. So, as you can imagine, it makes it hard for me to follow all of the exhortations in Scripture to "meditate" on God's word, character, law, etc.
One of the Biblical words used for meditating on Scripture actually has ties to how a cow digests its food. With multiple stomachs, a cow eats something, digests it partially, regurgitates it to a different stomach, digests it more, passes it to a different stomach, and so on...until the end product comes out. So by the time it has thoroughly processed it, it's absorbed as many nutrients as it can and broken it down as much as possible. And that is how we are supposed to read/meditate on Scripture?!
It seems to make sense, but I still have had a hard time putting practical legs to this until I heard how Martin Luther taught his barber to pray as he meditates on Scripture (I actually heard it on a podcast, and pulled over on the side of Berthoud Pass to take notes because it was so impactful!) To say this has revolutionized how I read & pray Scripture is an understatement, so here is what Luther wrote in that letter to his barber, encouraging him to ask these questions as he is reading the Bible.
1. How can this passage/concept/word lead me to adore God?
2. How can this passage/concept/word lead me to confess sin?
3. How can this passage/concept/word lead me to petition [ask] for grace?
4. How is Jesus the ultimate revelation of this attribute; solution to sin; source of grace?

May this teaching bear fruit in your heart and your life as you feast on God's word!

"Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers."
(Psalm 1:1-3)

Now & Later - more than just a chewy candy!

What do you think about? Do you spend much time thinking about the future?
My sister is 8 months pregnant, and it is causing our whole family to think a little more about the future - wanting to meet this new little boy or girl, wondering how its 2 older siblings will respond to it, dreaming about the baby's personality, passions, gifts, looks, and future.
Yet what if I told you that my sister and her husband haven't changed their lifestyle at all since finding out they are pregnant with their third child. What if they didn't consider their insurance plan, their birth plan, prepare their other two children for it, buy maternity clothes, buy prenatal vitamins, go to the midwife, stop drinking caffeine, prepare a place in their house for the baby, etc. You would probably say they are crazy and so would I! It would be as if they are living in denial of this upcoming event, as if that's going to change anything about the event happening.
Realistically, their knowledge of this future event (birth of the baby) should inform how they live for these 9 months and they should be preparing for that! We don't call pregnant women "expecting" for nothing!
Yet, my confession this morning is that so often I live my Christian life focused more on now in this present world than later in eternity...and I end up looking like I am crazy and in denial. As if denying or not thinking about eternity is going to change whether it happens or not. Regardless of how I live or believe, history isn't cyclical, Jesus is coming back, there will be a day of judgment, there will be a day of redemption & restoration. But it doesn't mean that we are to sit around with our silly formulas trying to figure out when Jesus is coming back (that would be as stupid as my sister & brother in law sitting around using formula trying to figure out exactly when the baby is coming), but rather we should let the reality of the future events inform how we live today. We should live in expectant anticipation!
How would I live today KNOWING that Jesus is coming back, that I will stand before a judge, knowing that the injustices and bad things will be redeemed and restored? How would my life be different today if I lived not just thinking about now, but also about later?

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this [world].”
~ C.S. Lewis

Be Careful Little Eyes What You See...

“Be careful little eyes what you see, be careful little eyes what you see, for the Father up above is looking down in love, so be careful little eyes what you see.”

This familiar children’s song is often used in teachings on purity, encouraging us to filter what images we watch on tv, look at magazines, etc. We know that we will be held accountable for all of the images we see, and that those images will affect our minds, even if we just glance at them for a second. I once heard someone say "You become what you behold" implying that what we look at will shape who we are.
Yet what about images of another nature...images of children eating crayons because they are so hungry, images of fathers patching holes in mud & grass houses, images of gogos putting food in their bags to take home to share with hungry family members, images of women in tears rejoicing over a month’s worth of food, images of a mother’s tears as she prepares to die and leave her sons motherless, images of a new orphan who doesn’t grasp the full impact of what just happened as his mother died, images of people hungry for God, images of children wearing clothes that are so worn down that they are see-through, images of illiterate people hanging on every word as someone reads the Bible, images of the three wet wipes it takes to clean one child's face, images of people unable to grasp the gift of a book that they can keep forever because they have no possessions....and so many more.
Those images also affect us, but in God’s sovereignty, He allows us to see things in order to take action. We live in a culture that is so bombarded by images that we are numb to most of what we see. Yet James admonishes us that if we see a brother or sister in need and don’t respond to that need, we need to take a second look at our faith that we claim to have (James 2: 14-17).
Our lives are to be full of actions...because of all that we have seen here in our lives, but also because through God's written revelation, we have seen how it ends. We know without a doubt that Christ will come again, that every part of this earth is groaning for redemption (Romans 8), that one day every knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that those who are in Christ will be raised to spend eternity with Him.

Yet with this glimpse of how it ends, God calls us to action.

He calls us to act now according to what we know will happen in the future...working towards His Kingdom coming, working towards reconciliation, seeing things in this world for the temporary gifts they are, putting our hope in eternity instead of the fleeting circumstances of today. Just as pregnant parents would be fools to not prepare and start living in the reality of the child soon to come, we would be fools to not prepare and start living in the reality of eternity that is to come!

What sticks?

For many of us, going to church and listening to teachings, podcasts, sermons is a regular part of our lives. But how much do you remember? Can you remember even the main passage or point of the message from last Sunday? How about one from last month or even last year? For many of us we are so inundated by so much information that we don't have time to process it all, let alone hope that it sticks to our memory, or that we might have time to meditate on it! But the Lord reminded me last week that this is not the case in Swaziland...or in most places of the world. In many places people are lucky if they can read and have a copy of the Bible. Some are lucky enough to have pastors who faithfully preach the Word or lead Bible studies. But many are longing for Christian fellowship and Biblical teaching, and when they get it, it sticks in their minds and in their hearts and God uses it to transform them.
Last year, one of the things I did as a team leader in Swaziland was to lead teachings several evenings a week. One of our Swazi ministry partners always loved to come to those times - he was so hungry for the Bible, for worship, and for fellowship that it didn't bother him that he would be hanging out with a bunch of American girls - he just wanted to grow. I never thought much about it at the time, but last week I had a conversation with this old friend that made me think twice.
One afternoon, we were finishing up at the carepoint and saying goodbye to those on the D-team that we wouldn't see again on our trip when he asked if he could ask me a question. I said sure, not having a clue what direction he would go with the question. But he asked if I remembered a quote I used in a teaching last November about being satisfied in the Lord. He said he has been thinking about it for a year and that it has changed his relationship with the Lord, and he was just wondering if I could write it down for him.
I don't remember the exact quote, but I know it was from a sermon that John Piper preached, where he talked about being satisfied in the Lord. He said that for him personally, he must get in the Bible each morning and be satisfied in the Lord before anything else...because if he isn't satisfied in the Lord, he is going to look to everything and everyone else in his day to satisfy him. And here is this young Swazi man, who knows through the poverty in his life that satisfaction can't come from material possessions (because they have so little) and satisfaction can't come from relationships (because life in Swaziland is so fleeting) and is now beginning to experience the reality that true satisfaction comes only from the Lord.
I praise God that He used that one quote from one teaching to draw one Swazi closer to his heart this year! And that He used that conversation last week to remind me to meditate on the many things He is trying to teach me...that they might bear fruit in my life and my relationship with Him for His glory and my joy.

"You open your hand; You satisfy the desire of every living thing."
- Psalm 145:16