Can We Stop Saying....?

I learned quickly in seminary that there were two “Sunday School” answers that could be given to almost any question asked in class: “Jesus” or “Context.” Jesus is obvious - he could be the ultimate answer for nearly any question. But it was a shock to me to hear “context, context, context” from every one of my teachers, whether it was in a spiritual formation class, church history, or counseling. It was drilled into me that context is the key to knowing the God revealed in Scripture, living with him, and inviting others to know him in my ministry.

So it was no surprise that my professors had some pet verses that we Christians often quote and teach to new Christians that are taken totally out of context. The most popular to correct was Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.” It’s repeatedly quoted as if this is a great proof-text for a small group, or the minimum you need for a church. It’s strange to think the God who promises to live in us would say that we need a couple of other people to guarantee his presence.   You don’t really need to get theological to offer a corrective. After all, the context is about church discipline, not a text concerning the power of group prayer.

Following my professors’ examples, I’ve picked two verses and sayings that no longer work if you look at the context.

“Sanctification is by God’s grace and our effort” — You may not hear these very words all that often, yet I think most Christians in evangelical circles believe God gives us some sort of toolbox called “grace” that allows us to live holy lives by our effort. When I point out that the Bible clearly communicates that we are justified by grace alone and sanctified by grace alone (with grace being the very presence of God’s Spirit in our hearts) it’s not too long before I hear something like Philippians 2:12, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”

Context: For the sake of brevity I’ll attempt to limit my answer to two contextual observations that don’t allow for this to be the case. First, in the ESV there’s a comma after 2:12 not a full-stop. Meaning 2:12 doesn’t make full sense without 2:13, “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Did you catch that it’s God who brings the desire and the effort in us to please God. Secondly, the broader context tells us that it’s not individuals Paul is speaking to in chapter 2 but rather a church living in response to having tasted union with Christ and participation of the Spirit (2:1-5). Part of this response is to be united as a body in Christ with the humility that gave birth to their community (2:6-11). So Paul tells the Philippians in a kind, fatherly voice, “As you have always listened to me, live out who you are as the body of Christ, for its God who gives you the desire and the effort to please him.” It’s not your effort to workout your salvation, but rather we are made like Christ only as we humbly cling to him for everything, even our sanctification.

“God doesn’t share his glory with any other” — This is said in order to draw people to God. It’s said to invite people to believe in God’s bigness, to see him in all his power, sovereignty, and majesty. Yet I’m not sure that this God is entirely biblical. Not to say that God doesn’t have these things as part of his being, but the emphasis of the Bible is that the character of his power, sovereignty, and glory is trustworthy and loving. Even as I write these words I know that someone is thinking of Isaiah 42:8, “I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other…”

Context: It’s clear that Isaiah 42:8 says that God doesn’t share his glory with any other, so what am I on about? Here’s another example where people want to put a full-stop where there’s a comma; 42:8 finishes with “nor my praise to carved idols,” which as a poetic parallelism clarifies the previous line. In other words, God will not share his people with other gods, who the Israelites have faithfully followed instead of the LORD. It’s not saying that God won’t ever share his glory with anyone; instead he won’t share it with carved idols that his people have loved.

In chapter 42 the LORD promises to give his suffering servant as a covenant for the people so that they will no longer live for false gods. We are Christians because Jesus, this servant, came to give us God’s glory. That is the Gospel!

In John it’s clear that God gives all that is his to us when Jesus says, “All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” Just in case you may question whether the “all” in John 16:15 actually includes his glory, let’s look at some of the specifics of the “all” that Jesus prays for in John 17:22-4:

"The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."

So three elements of the “all” that we find in John 17 are glory, love, and union. These are what the Son had with his Father before the foundation of the world—that is, being united to the Father in love, which is called “glory” (17:5). The very heart of the Gospel is that Jesus came and died on the cross in order to purchase the gift of his glory: that Father may love us just as he loves his eternal Son.

Please let’s stop saying things that distort God’s character and his Gospel by always pushing ourselves into the context.

Wolfish Sheep

Paul’s heart-wrenching farewell speech to the Ephesian elders (Acts 20) had to have been a life-marking moment never to be forgotten. With tears in their eyes and lumps in their throats, they carefully listened to Paul’s pleas for them to be prepared for fierce wolves that would attempt to ravage their flock.

I wonder what they were thinking as Paul warned them that there were two species of wolves. Those wolves that would come from outside the flock to destroy them (like Paul had been before he met the risen Jesus), and the other wolves that would come from within in order to draw a following of their own (see most of the New Testament Epistles).

I am sure that if the Ephesians were like most elders in the church today they would have been shocked to hear of wolves coming from within the flock—wolfish sheep. Typically people in our churches (leaders or not) believe wolfish behavior is a danger from outside of the church. It is easier to assume that this predator, who is totally other, will come from a foreign place to destroy the faith with strange and foreign “gospels.”

While the outside-wolf is dangerous and has been present throughout the story of the church, the most consistent and dangerous threat to the church is from wolfish sheep. The church consistently produces heretics who bend the words of the Gospel. Often their goals are not to destroy the flock, but to “twist things” that they may gain a following.

The danger of these wolfish sheep is the subtlety of their message. Just a twist here or an addition there, and they can absolutely destroy the whole council of God. Yet these deformities are so small the counterfeit is overlooked and it is appealing, which often leads to a mass following.

What do I mean? Well just as there’s little belief that a wolf can come from within, it’s also assumed, “If there’s any false teaching going around in the church
(broadly speaking), it can’t be in my tradition.” We assume our tradition is free from these “twisted gospels.” But I’d say if it could happen with the Apostles (Galatians 2:11-14) and the early church, then it can surely happen even to the most biblically devoted of churches.

Why is this? Well, I would point to our sinful flesh. We, by nature, posses a gravitational pull that leads us away from the Gospel. We falsely believe that we are autonomous beings created to be responsible choosers. So therefore any teaching that puts the burden on our back, especially in the sense of becoming godly and meriting reward, will draw us quickly toward it. It’s natural, it makes sense, and therefore many traditions are marred by the subtle twists and worldly passions that appeal to our flesh.

Before I say more let me offer a biblical example of these wolfish sheep. Judaizers, or the circumcision party, were a major problem for the early church. This heresy that Paul addresses repeatedly in his letters (Galatians, Romans, Titus, Colossians, just to name a few) taught that keeping the whole Law had a central role in the life of the believer. That is, they believed we are justified by faith through the death and resurrection of Jesus, but for our justification to be complete, we are made righteous or sanctified by our individual effort to obey the Law. This was a gospel twist that Paul insisted must be “rebuked sharply” (Titus 1:13) because it doesn’t correspond to the Gospel revealed in Christ and received by the Spirit. Rather, the addition of the Law to the Christian life is to follow the “elemental spirits of the world” (Col. 2:20ff), to “deny God” (Titus 1:16), to be bewitched (Gal. 3:1), and to sever yourself from Christ (Gal 5:4).

In other words, to look to our own effort by following ascetic rules or regulations of “do not handle, do not touch” are indulgences of the flesh and remove you from Christ. Paul said in Titus 1:10-16, that the people who would teach these things are “insubordinate, empty talkers, and deceivers”, who are “defiled and unbelieving”, and therefore in desperate need of correction. Consequently, anyone who teaches that keeping the Law is a means to being sanctified not only destroys the Law and the Gospel, but also must be silenced for the protection of the church and for the salvation of their very souls.

Calvin said it better in his Institutes, “Attention to one’s own righteousness also nullifies the promises.” See, if faith is “a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promises in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit,” then anything directing us away from this is disbelief.

Here is where it gets serious. How often to you think that you have to make yourself right for God to like you? How often to you think that you can make yourself more spiritual by some discipline, listening to a sermon, or reading your Bible? We have a wolfish heart that tells us that we must do something to make God love us more or for us to become better people. This is no different that the Judiazers that Paul chastises throughout Galatians.

We truly can’t do anything apart from God! It’s not that we are empowered to keep the Law by God. Rather, Christ purchased the very life and good for us on the cross that we might have the promised Spirit (Gal. 3:10-14). If anything draws us away from complete dependency on the Spirit, from walking by the Spirit, being led by the Spirit, and having the Spirit produce fruit in us, then it’s another message and it’s not from heaven.

Life in Christ continues just how it started, looking to Christ for life through the Spirit, by faith. Directing our gaze, building our righteousness, or easing our anxieties by keeping any rule or Law, instead of living by faith in God’s promise that we have life in Christ, is not the Gospel.   Paul states it so much better:

For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.   I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. (Gal 2:19-20)

May we follow the true teacher, and not the wolfish desires of our flesh, nor even the non-gospels often taught in our churches.

Conditioned God

When I got married I received all kinds of "helpful hints" on how to have a healthy relationship. Clearly some were more helpful than others, but one in particular was more dangerous than anything else—marriage is about "give and take." We’ve all heard this. Maybe we have come across reasons why it doesn’t work.

In the background of this ‘universal truth’ is the assumption that relationships are primarily contractual. That is, one party promises to provide certain benefits to the other on the basis that certain conditions are met. If either party doesn’t meet these defined conditions, then the contract—I mean “relationship”—is null and void and the deal can then be terminated. Give and take.

Shouldn’t marriage be about unconditional love? Doesn’t our culture yearn for authentic relationships with that foundation?

Well yes and yes but like the bad advice above, there’s a catch - we want to receive unconditional love but we don’t necessarily want to offer it. Because of Genesis 3 we function on the basis that relational covenant is a contract. We’re primarily concerned about what benefits we get and the conditions we need to meet to get what we want. So if someone doesn’t love us unconditionally, or make us happy, we don’t have to meet the conditions we promised.

What’s amazingly sad in all this is that humans actually want to relate to God this way as well.   We take God’s unconditional promises of covenant and turn them into conditional contracts. Think of Genesis 28, where Jacob leaves the land to escape his brother, Esau, and to get a wife who is not from the Canaanites. Before he leaves the land, God visits him in a dream. In the dream God promises Jacob the same promise that was given to his grandfather and father, which is characterized by the words “I will…” God unilaterally promises to bless Jacob, to be with him, and to bring him back to the land. And Jacob’s unbelieving response to God’s word is to turn the unconditional into a condition. “If God will be with me and keep his promises, then the LORD shall be my God.” Did you catch that? Jacob doesn’t believe God’s word but instead tells God that he has to prove it first.

Jacob isn’t the only one. Because of sin we all tend to morph any relationship into a contract with conditions. Often we project our fallenness onto God, expecting ourselves to prove our belief in him so that he might be gracious to us.

Therefore it shouldn’t be a surprise that theological systems do the same thing. For instance, in New England in the 17^th century, Puritans found themselves differing on this very subject. John Cotton emphatically said that we passively receive God’s free grace and promise, but his colleagues said otherwise:

… But to take our first Assurance to arise from the Spirit in an absolute promise only, is not only difficult for us to believe (and therefore desire your grounds) but seems to maintain, as straightening the freeness of God’s Spirit in working and destroying the comfort of many, whom Christ himself doth speak comfort unto, Matthew 5.3. etc. only we add, That God’s free grace may be revealed and received as freely in a conditional (where the Condition is first wrought by Gods free grace and not trust to, as we desire ever to be understood when we mention conditional promises) as in an absolute promise. For it is grace that works the Condition, it is grace that reveals the Condition, it is grace that makes the promise, it is grace that set on the promise; and what danger is there hereby, to a well instructed Christian of going astray from free grace?

Could I be so bold as to answer Cotton’s colleagues with another question? Which God would require a condition (even if graciously provided) in an unconditional promise? Does God really need to be conditioned to be gracious to us?

Their answer does seem to attempt to ease the tension of a God who’s a walking contradiction. You know: a God who’s one thing BUT also another, as if God has attributes that are seemingly in conflict, but are both true of him. Like the response to the 11th question of the Heidelberg Catechism, "God is indeed merciful, but also just...."

This tension does not reflect the Triune nature of God who exists in mutual relationship. The reality is that God is love and greatly delights in himself – He is a Father loving his Son, and the Son loving his Father, by their Spirit. Therefore all his actions such as creation, redemption, judgment, etc. reflect his loving Triune nature.

The walking contradiction attempts to make biblical the Stoic notion that God is primarily the “Contract God” who can only relate in a conditional contract, or as a Lawgiver. For instance, you’ll find people seeing the prayer of John 17 as a God who relates to himself in a contractual deal. So the church is understood to be the reward for Jesus’ obedience to his Father so that Jesus can have a people to rule over. This is very different than seeing the loving Son going to win a people for his Father so that they may participate in the Family of God.

I think the only one who comes to that conclusion has a God who is a “give and take” God, or a contract God, rather than a covenant God. The whole story of God isn’t give and take; it’s rather a story of the Generous Giver. It’s about the One who pursues his people with “all his heart and all his soul” (Jer. 32:41). It’s about the Father who has given us his only Son that we might be his people and He our God. It’s about the Father who has given all that’s his to his Son, so that the Son may give all that he has to his bride.

Bottom line: the Bible isn’t the story of an a-relational God who cannot relate without a condition. He doesn’t require us to clean ourselves up so that we can then be united to Christ. Rather, we are united to Christ who makes us clean. Or in other words, a pauper isn’t required to make herself a princess that she might marry the prince, but rather the prince marries the pauper, which makes her a princess. It’s all about unconditional relationship and promise as the basis for covenant, not a conditional contract.

Exclusive? Is it that bad?

For a moment picture the response of any father who hears a large bang coming from the family room late in the evening. As he rushes toward the room he hears someone tearing down the blinds and the crackling of the broken glass being walked upon. When he enters the room he's startled to find a woman sitting comfortably on the couch as if waiting for someone to welcome her. And before he can even say, "who are you?” she begins a list of demands that go something like this:

"I want to reside in your home and for you to treat me as your daughter in every way, as if I were married to your only son. But with the stipulation that I don't have anything to do with your son! I really don't like him . . . I want to live my life here."

I don't know about you, but I doubt any of us would be surprised to hear a wrathful response full of jealousy for his son.   The audacity to demand the rewards of being his son's wife without any real connection to him, even blatant hostility against him, would deserve her immediate removal. Even by force if necessary!

Another reason that we'd expect a response like this is that we understand there's only a few ways to enter into a family. We don't question that the way into a family is either by birth, adoption, invitation, or by marriage. To say it doesn't offend any of our sensibilities. Family by definition is exclusive. Some are part of your family and others are not. That's the way it goes.

With that in mind, have you ever been asked, or have you ever asked, a set of questions like this:

"How can you believe that God is good when he offers only one way to heaven? Don't you think it’s cruel to keep so many good people from entering into heaven?"

Either as the questioner, or as the one asked the question, I'm sure that the answer included Jesus' words "I am the way, the truth, and the life," and that apart from him no one can get into heaven. While these words are absolutely true, it doesn't seem to reflect the tone or the nature of Jesus' last words to his disciples in John 14.

Now in our post-modern western culture it's apocryphal to claim any views on the nature of truth and goodness that may be exclusive in anyway. The logic goes, "Truth is relative, your truth can be your truth and my truth can be mine. And as long as nobody gets hurt, goodness is relative too." Although the irony isn't lost on me - the intolerance of perceived intolerance - the context of John 14:6 may allow for a more effective method for engaging objections to the exclusivity of the Christian faith (as well as honoring the intention of Jesus' words and the nature of God).

Jesus, to comfort the hearts of his disciples, tells them that they shouldn't be troubled by his coming departure (14:1-3).   Instead, they should believe that he's going away for their benefit that he may prepare a place for them in his Father's house. All the disciples would have noticed the obvious betrothal imagery. At this time in a Jewish culture, a man would propose to a woman (which would be treated just as legally binding as marriage) and return to his father's house to build an addition to the home for the new couple. After his father approved the addition he would then go and retrieve his bride.

And Jesus tells his disciples that they should feel about the news of his departure just as a new bride would respond to her betrothal (14:28). Think about the thrill that the bride would feel as her bridegroom left to prepare a home for their new life and the all-consuming anticipation of his return. This would not have been lost on Jesus’ disciples. They should rejoice and be excited that he's leaving to go to his Father!

It's easy to see why Jesus says to his disciples that they know where he's going (14:4). As they have seen Jesus, they have seen the Father, because he and his Father are one (14:10ff). And to believe the words of Jesus, to follow his way (13:34-5), and to believe on him for life, are the very fruit of abiding in Christ. To love Jesus is to love and know the Father. Therefore, just as the Father has loved the Son, so too the Father loves Jesus' disciples, his "bride" (14:18-31).

Jesus' words then, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me," make perfect sense. There's no way to enter into the relationship with the Father and Son apart from being united to the Son because the Father and Son are one. To know the Father is know Jesus. To love the Father is to love the Son. This is heaven!

Heaven is to participate, to join the family of the Trinity by the Spirit who has been in the business of communicating the depths of the Father and Son's love for each other for all eternity (1 Cor. 2).

There's no other way to reside in the Father's house apart from his Son, because they are one. Anything else, any other way, is no different than a random woman breaking through the window and demanding all the benefits of the house without any love for the members of the family that live there. Even in our post-modern western culture the exclusivity of the family remains the same. Forcing one's way into the family apart from accepted modes only leads to removal and maybe even restraining orders.

Loving God at Christmas

Christmas is just a day away. It's hard to believe that! Yet it's impossible to ignore the bright lights and familiar melodies of Christmas that are everywhere. For me this time of year generates mixed feelings.

I love the days leading up to Christmas, the anticipation of fun & tasty family traditions and restful moments of being home with family. I love the numerous ways we celebrate the great promises we have in Christ. From the carol services to the incredible smells you experience as you walk through a Christmas market. And what make these celebratory moments great are the people we get to share them with!

But these very same moments and people can be the source of Christmas pain. When we share Christmas with friends and family it can't help but make us feel nostalgic of the joys we've had before and with whom we shared those joys. Inevitably thoughts of those missing this year will come to mind. For me, it's talking with grandma in her kitchen as she makes all kinds of pies for after Christmas dinner. I wasn't much help in the kitchen, I just watched and drooled over the pies already made, while she cooked and told stories of yesteryear. I miss her pies, and I miss her even more!

The friends and family members who are no longer with us aren't necessarily the only source of pain and sorrow at Christmas. The holidays can be a great source of stress and tension because of the very people we love being with. Especially when members of your family don't see eye to eye on things like religion and politics. These differences aren't just abstract concepts but through time shape the texture of our individual lives when we are apart. When these different textures are in the same room, friction can occur.

But let's face it, we can agree with people about the most fundamental things in life and still have conflict. Especially at this time of year where stress to make Christmas special and/or personality differences create tension. Familiarity and history with those we are celebrating the holidays may even cause us to come to conflict sooner.

So what do we do about the mixed feelings of Christmas, especially those feelings that may lead to conflict? Please don't think I want you to avoid people in order to avoid tension in the holidays. Relationships are what make us who are; they are the joy of life.

These moments, like all moments in life, are an opportunity to love others as God has loved us.

I've heard and learned some great tactics to have love grow for people around us. One is to pray for God to give eyes to see others they way he sees them. They are clearly special to him; so special in fact that the Father sent his Son to save the world. Everyone around us are wonderfully made and are special, we just need God to help to see this. This is a powerful way to engage God and others. You're asking God because you can't do this on your own and you're asking to have your heart align with his, prayers I'm confident he wants us to pray! Prayers I'm certain will change your life.

Recently I came across another perspective on loving others in relationship, which I think will be beneficial for Christmas and in everyday moments. Augustine's (354-430 AD) ultimate goal in his preaching was to have his congregation make God their greatest affection. He understood that the battle in this life lies in the heart, that in our fallen nature our priorities are all wrong and we must find joy in Jesus above all else.

Even in our relationships Augustine taught that our love for God was the source of love for others. When speaking of friendship Augustine said, "For you truly love that friend, by loving God in your friend. Either because he is in him, or that he might be in him" (Confessions, 4.7 in Sanlon, Augustine's Theology of Preaching, 163).

Did you catch that? Augustine believed that God resided or could reside in those around him. He knew this from Romans 5:5, the Holy Spirit is the gift of grace who unites us to Christ. Therefore, to love others in our lives is to love God that's in them. God must be so prior to any other affection that he is even the motivation to love those we love. Even those we are to cherish we do so because God is in them or possibly in them. And the same Spirit who unites us to Christ is the Spirit and love that we are united to one another.

Even in moments of conflict, if we have this perspective the Spirit may produce his fruit because we'll have the mind of the Spirit. Our Christmases will have the Spirit of giving, patience, and humility, things that can often be missing even thought we're surrounded by other gifts.

In many ways it's an abstract thought, but here's the important bit. As we spend time with those we love over Christmas, the celebration of our God's humility and love, ask God to show us himself in those we love. Could you imagine what Christmas would be like for us if we loved God like this? We may still feel the pain of those missing this Christmas but we'll enjoy those God has given us this Christmas far more than we could imagine.

Longing for Home

Have you ever felt homesick? You know that feeling that something is missing, as if a part of you is no longer there. With these feelings you may become easily distracted, little things remind of you what or who is missing in your life, you start to think about the next time you'll get be whole again, and or figure out ways to get back there sooner than planned.

Homesickness crept into my life for the first time in awhile. Two weeks ago, I with my family, returned to our "home" in the UK after spending a few weeks in the US, our "home" country.   Our time there was rich with ministry, reconnections with friends and family, and mixed emotions when saying goodbye.

Don't get me wrong, we loved every minute we spent with people who are precious to us, but after a couple weeks of being "home" we were desperate to get "home" to our beds, to our house, to our ministry and normal routine.   But everyone in our family hated having to say good-bye again to people we love. It was hard to repeatedly to stay as someone's home, get use to be living there with them, and then just when you started to feel at "home" it was time to leave. A situation especially hard for our youngest son who, for him, it was the first time he got to know much of his family.

So we are homesick, but excited to be home. Confused? Don't worry we are a little too!

As my wife and I have processed our conflicting affections, we've started to realize how few Christians live in this tension enough. I'm not saying you need to drop everything and move to another country in order feel the tension of being "home" but not being "home." But shouldn't homesickness be the reality for all of us who love Jesus?

It's common christianese to say that this place is not our home, but our true home is a place we've never been--heaven. As a biblical truth I'd wholeheartedly affirm this yet there's a rub. How many of us on a regular basis feel homesick for heaven? How many of us get distracted with wondering thoughts of being with Christ in heaven? Have that gut ache from missing home so much? Daydreaming about whether Jesus returns to be with us that day and what the reunion would be like? Or wondering when the Lord will take us to be with him?

That last question may have drawn a cringed objection in your heart, "I don't want to die, I may love Jesus but I don't want to die now."   It's strange to think that part of missing Jesus could be looking forward to a time where he'd take us to be with him. Yet maybe we should a whole lot more.

Here's what I mean. As a kid who's parent's divorced and who moved more than I can count, I think I become conditioned to homesickness. Not until I fell in love with my wife did I start to feel homesickness again. In the beginning our relationship we spent 9 months out of the year 3,000 miles apart. We hated those days (no mobile phones with unlimited minutes, or Skype, etc.) and we went days, sometimes months without hearing each other’s voices. Yet we functioned, we were able to live our lives without the other. Today we can barely function just a few days away from one another. A few months would be disastrous! When we are forced to be away from one another, we plan, dream, and get ready to see each other again.

Why aren't we homesick for Jesus? Why is it we can be like this with people around us, but the one we are to love above everyone else we can function without? Some may easily go a whole day, a week, maybe even months without talking to him?

There's lot's of reasons for this. It's hard to miss someone we've never seen, touched, or heard his voice. Eschatology can be a heated and confusing discussion, so we just avoid talking about Jesus' return. It could also be that we just love being "home" and don't really miss our home.   I don't think anything could get in the way of me wanting to be or see my wife after days of being apart. Shouldn't we look forward to and prepare for our Bridegroom to return to get his bride?

The tension of being "home" but not being home should be a feeling Christian's walk with all the time. But it's also not feelings you can force yourself to have either. I can't imagine forcing myself to miss my wife. It's nonsensical. But as my love for her has grown over the years my need to be with her has increased. What we need is a greater heart for Christ, and as our love for him increases we'll desire to be with him even more.

Thankfully we can't do this on our own. We need God, who's more than happy to give us love for him if we want it, so ask! I warn you though, you may become homesick for Jesus, our home.

The Legacy of Everyday Moments

Jesus is impressive. I know this is obvious to many of us and maybe you're thinking (with a hint of sarcasm), "Of course he is, Jesus is God!"   I could use the space of this blog to list all the ways he elicits the response "Awesome!" However, there's one particular aspect of his character that has drawn much of my attention lately: his leadership. Particularly, how by the mere use of his authority he draws people to trust him with their greatest treasures: their hearts.

Now, I suspect for most of us, when we hear the word "authority" it’s not a heart inspiring experience. History is littered with examples of the misuse, I should say, abuse of authority. From the most powerful position in the world to the authority of an everyday father, leadership has caused pain, suffering, and death.

But when you see Jesus' leadership in the little things, you see someone trustworthy to have authority over the greatest treasures of our lives.

Let me step back and give one reason why I'm interested in Jesus' leadership in the everyday small things. As a father, I want to lead in such a way that my family happily places themselves under my care, my love, and my authority. Even in the most difficult times, even when my children are being disciplined, I desire that they would have a trust that I'm leading on account of my love for them. That somehow I'm meeting their needs in that particular situation because I've established in everyday moments a clear pattern that I'm all about meeting their needs because I love them.

That's where there's a rub. It's in the everyday moments where I seem to fail, even sin, the most. Just for an example, after a long hard day or a week of travel and teaching, when I get home all I want to do is cease. Stop. Rest. For me that means not being available.   But what do my kids need the most? A dad who's available for them any time they need me even if I'm exhausted.  What builds that kind of trust? That I look to meet their needs above my own.  Yet I could use my authority as a father to create a distance between them and me. Or use irritability so that they wouldn't want to be around me. And the fruit of this isn’t a desire to be led but a mistrust of their father.

It was Jesus in two seemingly insignificant verses in Mark 2:1-2 that struck me square in the heart. Here Jesus comes to his home base in Capernaum after he traveled from town to town throughout Galilee teaching. He had to be exhausted after all that walking and teaching. I imagine when he got home he was ready for a break and a good meal. That's when, just as Jesus was about to take a bite of a well-deserved meal, there's a knocking at the door.

If it were any of us, we'd be thinking "Now what?" And as the door was opened to a mass of people wanting to hear from you and see you perform, you'd say "Not now, I'll teach the word and heal the sick tomorrow, right now I need ‘me time.’"

But that's not what Jesus does. Instead he puts aside whatever rest he was getting and invited them in and began preaching the word. In the midst of resting he's available for fellowship and meeting the needs of those around him. We find Jesus even before this getting away from everyone, but he spends time with the Father. In Genesis our Lord ceases but in his resting he walks in the garden with his creation. Our God leads by meeting the needs of those around him and always being available for fellowship.

Could you imagine what kind of legacy one could leave if as a parent, a spouse, a friend, or a pastor, that no matter how tired you might be that you were available for fellowship and to serve? I imagine unity and health as the major characteristics of a family, marriage, or congregation if led with this heart.

And then there's the context of this passage that caused me to want to give him my life again. In Mark 1:33, the whole city of Capernaum gathered to see and follow Jesus. But Jesus didn't come to create a cult of personality. He didn't come to have a group of people to praise him and serve him. Rather he came to reveal his Father and serve the world.   So, unlike so many leaders in the world and the church, Jesus leaves the crowd behind and goes to teach in other places.

Jesus isn't just a pattern to replicate or imitate. I hope, like me, that you are drawn to trust Jesus with all your heart, with all your time, with all your relationships because he's trustworthy to have leadership over them. As I happily place myself under his authority, in the places where I find myself in authority, my character should be like his. I want to love because I've been loved. And I want to lead selflessly because I've been led selflessly. I want to act like him, I want from the inside out to love and lead as he's loved and led me.

It's amazing how we'll never exhaust the beauty and the loveliness of Christ, even in the everyday moments!