Chapter 11: Investment
Eating with sinners is not something that comes with no cost. It requires an investment of time, energy, money, our whole lives. Ironically, that is what being a Christian costs as well. You see they go hand in hand. Christianity isn't something that you just say you are, Christianity is who you are and what you do all the time. Before you become a Christian, or before you continue your life as a Christian, you need to count the cost. Are you willing to do what it takes to be a Christian? Are you really? Because Jesus asks for it all, and that is a lot to ask.
He asks for our resources. "What resources do you have? Which are you willing to give up to reach lost people? Are you willing to write a big check? Are you willing to sell that old sports car sitting in the garage that hasn't been driven for years? Are you willing to let the church use your home as a small group location? Are you willing to buy groceries for a needy family? Are you willing to spend money or supplies to an overseas missionary? Are you willing to start giving at least 10 percent of your income to your church? Are you willing to give up anything and everything to reach someone for Jesus? 'Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.' (Jesus)
There is a popular line of thinking today that says once you become a Christian all your problems will go away. You'll become 'healthy, wealthy, and wise.' I hate to rain on that parade, but that is far from the picture Jesus paints. Jesus says that there are no uncrucified disciples. He says be ready and willing to take up your cross. He says that if we aren't willing to invest our lives in following Him, we are not true disciples.
"If we're looking for a comfortable faith, then we're not going to want to follow Jesus. If we're looking for a faith that won't cost us too much, then Christianity is not the right choice for us. It's time for you, me, and any others who call themselves Christian to put on our big boy and big girl pants, man up (and woman up too), pick up our crosses, and start investing our lives in our faith by inviting people to the great banquet."
We say that we want a world filled wit the light of Christ. A world filled with the light of Christ costs a lot. It costs everything. Are you ready?
Enjoy the Journey
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Chapter 10: Humility
Humility is the quality of having a modest view of one's person, rank, and importance. "William Beebe, the naturalist, occasionally visited the home of former president Teddy Roosevelt. President Roosevelt and Beebe would go out on the lawn at night to search the skies for a certain spot of light near the lower left-hand corner of the Great Square of Pegasus constellation. Then they would recite: 'That is the Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of a hundred million galaxies. It consists of one hundred billion suns, each larger than our sun.' Then President Roosevelt would grin and say, 'Now I think we are small enough. Let's go to bed.'"
Sometimes it is really hard to be humble. It must have been hard for Christ to be humble. I mean after all, He is God. Yet He was willing to die on a cross. The cross was designed to both humiliate and kill its victim. Check out what Philippians 2:5-8 has to say about this. Our attitude should be like His? Now that is a tall order.
"As we eat with sinners, it would be wise to start each meal with a slice of humble pie, because it seems to me that it's too easy to position ourselves safely on a comfortable perch and look down with pity on those so far below us. This is absurd and un-Christlike. If we really want to reach lost people, we must be humble=and true humility comes from standing next to the cross."
An acronym is a word formed from the initial letters of each of the successive major parts of a compound term. What are some famous ones? CEO, FBI, SCUBA, RADAR, ect... Arron gives us the acronym HARD:
Healing is perpetually possible with Jesus.
Always remember the well.
Reseat yourself if necessary
Dinner should be a party to which everyone is invited.
As Christians it is tempting to separate ourselves from everyone else for fear that we might 'catch their sin.' I'm not saying that we should all go down and spend the rest of our time in the bar drinking with everyone. But what I am saying is that we can't expect people to come to Christ on our terms. We can't expect people who don't know Christ to act like they do before we are willing to spend time with them. We can't look down on people from our perch of holiness and pray for their pitiful souls and expect God to bless us by using us to bring people to Christ.
When Christ healed a man on the Sabbath who was suffering from dropsy, He immediately asked the teachers of the law if the had an ox who fell in the well on the Sabbath if they would pull it out. This was to prove His point that they didn't care about this man, they only wanted to trap Jesus. We've all been 'trapped in a well' from time to time, hopelessly flailing about in our sin. "With true humility, Jesus resolves never to leave the well until every last person who is willing to follow Him is rescued." That is our mission. True humility calls us to help people who we think are "worse" than we are. People who are trapped in a well of sin and need help getting out. That is what Jesus did, think HARD on it.
Enjoy the Journey
Humility is the quality of having a modest view of one's person, rank, and importance. "William Beebe, the naturalist, occasionally visited the home of former president Teddy Roosevelt. President Roosevelt and Beebe would go out on the lawn at night to search the skies for a certain spot of light near the lower left-hand corner of the Great Square of Pegasus constellation. Then they would recite: 'That is the Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of a hundred million galaxies. It consists of one hundred billion suns, each larger than our sun.' Then President Roosevelt would grin and say, 'Now I think we are small enough. Let's go to bed.'"
Sometimes it is really hard to be humble. It must have been hard for Christ to be humble. I mean after all, He is God. Yet He was willing to die on a cross. The cross was designed to both humiliate and kill its victim. Check out what Philippians 2:5-8 has to say about this. Our attitude should be like His? Now that is a tall order.
"As we eat with sinners, it would be wise to start each meal with a slice of humble pie, because it seems to me that it's too easy to position ourselves safely on a comfortable perch and look down with pity on those so far below us. This is absurd and un-Christlike. If we really want to reach lost people, we must be humble=and true humility comes from standing next to the cross."
An acronym is a word formed from the initial letters of each of the successive major parts of a compound term. What are some famous ones? CEO, FBI, SCUBA, RADAR, ect... Arron gives us the acronym HARD:
Healing is perpetually possible with Jesus.
Always remember the well.
Reseat yourself if necessary
Dinner should be a party to which everyone is invited.
As Christians it is tempting to separate ourselves from everyone else for fear that we might 'catch their sin.' I'm not saying that we should all go down and spend the rest of our time in the bar drinking with everyone. But what I am saying is that we can't expect people to come to Christ on our terms. We can't expect people who don't know Christ to act like they do before we are willing to spend time with them. We can't look down on people from our perch of holiness and pray for their pitiful souls and expect God to bless us by using us to bring people to Christ.
When Christ healed a man on the Sabbath who was suffering from dropsy, He immediately asked the teachers of the law if the had an ox who fell in the well on the Sabbath if they would pull it out. This was to prove His point that they didn't care about this man, they only wanted to trap Jesus. We've all been 'trapped in a well' from time to time, hopelessly flailing about in our sin. "With true humility, Jesus resolves never to leave the well until every last person who is willing to follow Him is rescued." That is our mission. True humility calls us to help people who we think are "worse" than we are. People who are trapped in a well of sin and need help getting out. That is what Jesus did, think HARD on it.
Enjoy the Journey
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Chapter 9: Mercy
What is grace? A simple definition is 'giving someone something that he doesn't deserve.' What is mercy? A simple definition is 'not giving someone something that he does deserve.'
We tend to like it when people get what they deserve don't we? We like it when the bad guy gets caught and goes to prison forever. We would like it if Osama bin Laden was found dead. We like revenge. It sells, it sells movies, books, revenge is sweet! That is how we are, but its not how we should be. We should be concerned with their salvation. We should be concerned about giving them the same chance to receive mercy that we were given. "Mercy doesn't sell a lot of books or movie tickets, and it may not make you popular at the Pentagon or as a UFC competitor, but it reflects the heart of God and it's an essential ingredient to any meaningful effort to reach lost people for Jesus."
Jesus told a parable about mercy. We know it as the parable of the Good Samaritan. The story began with a question from one of the teachers of the law. The question was this: "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Its an odd question really. "I have to caution him about thinking that there is anything we can actually do to inherit eternal life. The cool thing about an inheritance is that you don't have to do anything to receive it-it's a gift from a father to a child. Like many of us, this guy has it all wrong. Our salvation is not about what we do or have done, but about what God has done for us."
As the parable unfolds, it turns out that the hero of the parable is the Samaritan. Of course the one person that the teacher of the law would hate the most ends up being the protagonist! Jesus also holds him up as an example of what a neighbor is! This was devastating, because Jesus had just told him that to inherit eternal life he had to love his neighbors. Jesus had just blown the social hierarchy right out of the water. "Like the Samaritan, Jesus was merciful to people regardless of who they were, what they'd done, or whether they liked Him," and He expects nothing less of us. As we eat with sinners, we need to leave revenge at home, and replace it with mercy. That's what everyone deserves, and we want them to get what they deserve right?
Enjoy the Journey
What is grace? A simple definition is 'giving someone something that he doesn't deserve.' What is mercy? A simple definition is 'not giving someone something that he does deserve.'
We tend to like it when people get what they deserve don't we? We like it when the bad guy gets caught and goes to prison forever. We would like it if Osama bin Laden was found dead. We like revenge. It sells, it sells movies, books, revenge is sweet! That is how we are, but its not how we should be. We should be concerned with their salvation. We should be concerned about giving them the same chance to receive mercy that we were given. "Mercy doesn't sell a lot of books or movie tickets, and it may not make you popular at the Pentagon or as a UFC competitor, but it reflects the heart of God and it's an essential ingredient to any meaningful effort to reach lost people for Jesus."
Jesus told a parable about mercy. We know it as the parable of the Good Samaritan. The story began with a question from one of the teachers of the law. The question was this: "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Its an odd question really. "I have to caution him about thinking that there is anything we can actually do to inherit eternal life. The cool thing about an inheritance is that you don't have to do anything to receive it-it's a gift from a father to a child. Like many of us, this guy has it all wrong. Our salvation is not about what we do or have done, but about what God has done for us."
As the parable unfolds, it turns out that the hero of the parable is the Samaritan. Of course the one person that the teacher of the law would hate the most ends up being the protagonist! Jesus also holds him up as an example of what a neighbor is! This was devastating, because Jesus had just told him that to inherit eternal life he had to love his neighbors. Jesus had just blown the social hierarchy right out of the water. "Like the Samaritan, Jesus was merciful to people regardless of who they were, what they'd done, or whether they liked Him," and He expects nothing less of us. As we eat with sinners, we need to leave revenge at home, and replace it with mercy. That's what everyone deserves, and we want them to get what they deserve right?
Enjoy the Journey
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