Further

For me, deeper discipleship (that is, God-following that’s one step deeper than my current reality) is scary.

Mostly, it’s scary because I haven’t been there. It’s scary because I don’t know exactly what would happen if I _____________ (gave/committed/sold/confessed/sacrificed/reached out/etc.). I don’t know because I’ve never been there.

That’s why I couldn’t help underlining this statement today from Moses to Israel in Deuteronomy 1: “The LORD your God who goes before you will himself fight for you.” I love that—”God who goes before you.”

What a powerful truth: God is wherever I’m afraid to go.

The next level of discipleship is not a frightening abyss; it’s a light-filled, God-inhabited, pre-scouted trail. And it’s certainly not dangerous. If anything’s dangerous, it’s not going to where God is.

So here’s to next steps, and to taking those steps with the calm assurance that though I’m not sure what lies ahead, I know Who’s waiting for me there.

__________________

P.S. For a fantastic post that will no doubt tempt you  (as it did me) into picking up Deuteronomy and feasting on its goodness, click here. 

6 Ways to Tell if Your Spiritual Life is Ritual-Heavy and Relationship-Light

An inescapable truth in Scripture: Christianity is centered on relationship. Not ritual.

Is that to say ritual is meaningless and unimportant? Nope. But the moment the execution of proper ritual eclipses the pursuit of meaningful relationship with God and people, we’ve missed the mark.

So here are 6 ways to tell if your Christianity is more about ritual than relationship:

1. You talk more about issues than you do about Christ.
   
   
2. Worship/ritual feels empty.
   
   
3. You would rather debate someone than share what Christ has done in your life.
   
   
4. You know a lot of what the Bible says, but you don’t do all that much of what the Bible says.
   
   
5. Because your public worship happens a lot more than your private devotion, people think you’re holier than you are.
   
   
6. Your Christianity isn’t very portable; it stays mostly at the church building.

I’d love to say I can’t identify with any of these, but that would be very untrue. I’m glad to say, though, that a lot fewer of them apply today than did a few years ago.

What about you?

Two Things Every Christian Should Know

If you’re a Christian, here’s what I know about you:

You have two stories.

Every Christian does.

1. HOW you were saved
2. WHY you were saved

Check out how Paul refers to both stories in Ephesians 2:

[HOW:] “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. [WHY:] For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Here’s the cool thing: God never saves anybody exactly the same way, and He never saves anybody for exactly the same reason.

Sure, we’re all saved by grace through faith, but the exact circumstances of that salvation—the who and the what and the where that God brought together to bring about your personal salvation—are absolutely unique.

And sure, we’re all saved to do good works, but which good works and where and how? God has things planned for you that He hasn’t planned for anybody else in the world.

I think that’s awesome.

So, what’s your HOW and WHY?

____________
*Many thanks to David Swanger who got me thinking about this recently.

Forward

Well, it’s official. We’re moving.

Last week, I accepted the position of pulpit minister at the Round Rock Church of Christ in Round Rock, TX (just outside of Austin).

I’m thrilled.

Don’t get me wrong—leaving the people we love here in Henderson (Jennifer’s parents and my best friend, just to mention a few) will be difficult.

Tears will be shed.

But Jennifer and I have lived long enough to know that when God calls you to be a part of what He’s doing, you don’t want to miss it. Answering His call will be worth whatever it costs us.

Over the past several months, I’ve felt strongly drawn back into preaching. I feel I’m at my best when I’m serving God in that role, and it excites me to no end that He’s chosen to bless me with an opportunity to fulfill that calling.

In our brief (but surprisingly extensive) interaction with the Round Rock church, we’ve found it to be a family of Christ followers who have a sincere desire to draw close to God and to share His love with their community and the world.

I couldn’t ask for anything more.

In my conversations about the RR church, I’ve found myself saying multiple times that we’ve met so many people who just seem to have God spilling out of them.

I can’t wait to get wet.

How To Conquer Well

Have you heard the story about Hernando Cortés burning his ships off the Veracruz coast? Great story.

In 1517, Cortés set sail for Mexico under the orders of Diego Velázquez, governor of Cuba (then a colony of Spain). Velázquez wanted Cortés to initiate trade relations with Aztec tribes along the Yucatán coast. Of course, eventually conquering the Aztecs was certainly in Velázquez’s mind, but he wanted to reserve the privilege of leading that war for himself.

Cortés, though, knew that if he were to conquer the Aztecs, his glory and favor with the Spanish king would quickly eclipse that of Velázquez. So he did.

But not everybody was up for it. In fact, when Cortés’ plans became clear, a group of his men still loyal to Velázquez conspired to seize a ship and escape to Cuba. Cortés, though, learned of their plan.

So he burned his ships.

Talk about a clear message. Cortés wanted complete loyalty—he was fully committed to the mission, and he expected his men to share his allegiance. As one source says, “Cortés effectively stranded the expedition in the so-called New World and ended all thoughts of loyalty to the Governor of Cuba.”

If only Jesus were so insistent. If only Jesus, at every hint of rebellion or misplaced loyalty, burned the ships and made it impossible for his followers to leave. If only Jesus stranded people in the mission.

But he doesn’t.

Instead of might, he rules with love. Instead of force, he leads by example. Instead of clinging to power, he died for the powerless.

Seems like this wouldn’t be successful.

…But then, whose mission is still going strong?

Looks like you don’t have to burn the ships if you bear the cross.

Pass/Fail

Powerful words from Jesus:

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” (Mt. 12:30)

I guess the million dollar question is, What would it look like if I was truly with Christ? What would it look like if I was actively gathering with Jesus?

If my life doesn’t match that picture, well…I’m on the wrong side.

Great Book Alert: Primal, by Mark Batterson

So Mark Batterson was kind enough to send me a pre-release copy of his brand new book, Primal. You can buy it starting today on Amazon, and I can honestly say that you should. Because it’s really good.

And I’m glad it’s good, because this post would be pretty awkward if it wasn’t.

THE BOTTOM LINE
Primal is, as the subtitle suggests, “A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity.” Batterson takes us to Jesus’ summary of what following God is all about—the Great Commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).

This, says Batterson, is Christianity in its most primal form.

The problem is, “we’re not great at the Great Commandment. In too many instances, we’re not even good at it.” Batterson spends the rest of the book exploring the “four kaleidoscopic words” Jesus uses to describe the dimensions of our love for God: heart, soul, mind, and strength.

BEST TAKEAWAY SO FAR
I’ve underlined quite a bit, and I’m only a third of the way through the book (I just got it last week). One thing, though, has jostled around in my head since I read it.

Batterson tells the story of hearing Senator Bill Frist speak several years ago at the National Prayer Breakfast. Before serving in the Senate, Frist performed more than 150 heart transplants as a thoracic surgeon. At the Prayer Breakfast he spoke about the moment a heart is grafted into a new body. Apparently, all doctors can do is wait and hope that it will begin to beat. He said no one’s really sure why or how it works.

It’s a mystery.

And it seems the mystery of the heart doesn’t stop there. Batterson writes, “Studies suggest that the heart secretes its own brainlike hormones and has cellular memory. So a heart transplant isn’t just physical, it’s metaphysical. Heart transplant recipients don’t just receive a new organ, they receive cellular memories.”

IT GETS BETTER
If you’re intrigued by that, check this out: Batterson refers to Charles Siebert’s account of how he observed a group of heart transplant recipients who often talked about new desires that accompanied their new hearts. Evidently, numerous studies back up Siebert’s conclusion: transplant recipients receive not just a new heart, but entirely new sensory responses, cravings, and habits.

Seibert’s name for the group? “The tribe of the transplanted.”

Of course, this begs application. And Batterson delivers. But I’ll let you read it for yourself.

Make Primal the first book you read in 2010. I think you’ll be glad you did.

I Can Tell If You’ve Been With Jesus.

Every once in a while, I’ll come across a collection of high-speed photography on Smashing Magazine or some other website. I love this stuff—it gives you a glimpse into things that happen all the time but are completely invisible to the human eye.

For example, check out these shots of water balloons being popped:

Thanks to a capture rate of 1200 frames per second, something becomes quite evident: water retains the shape of balloon just after the balloon is gone. Before long, though, the water loses that shape and becomes just plain old water.

I can relate.

Being close to Jesus has the same effect on a human being—the proximity causes me to take the shape of Christ. He and I become congruent.

This is why Luke says of the Jewish rulers, “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

Their shape gave them away.

It’s true with us, too. When we’ve been close to Jesus, we resemble him. But the longer it’s been since I’ve been enveloped by his presence, the more his likeness fades and the more I look like just plain old water.

The lesson? I need to constantly keep company with the Master. My form should, like the water in these photographs, reveal my association. I’ve heard it was often said of an old spiritual great, “It seemed as though God Himself must have been in the room he just left.”

I want that said of me. I want the freshness of my encounters with Christ to be palpable and undeniable.