Category: Discipleship

A few years ago, I read some of James K. A. Smith’s work. One book in particular is You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit. I posted about it (read here) as it made me think about habits and how they form us. When it comes to “discipleship” we generally view it as attending a Bible study but Smith made me think a bit outside the box. True, discipleship does involve the mind, but it must also include our whole selves, or our bodies as Smith contends. Makes sense to me as at the heart of discipleship is the idea of following. In other words, you do as the teacher does.

Though I have continued to meditate what Smith is arguing for in You Are What You Love, it all became fresh for me today as I was reading Scot McKnight’s new book A Church Called Tov. And by the way, I personally feel that every church leader and member should grab a copy of this book and work though it. It deals with the abuse of power in local churches and how a church can and must resist unhealthy structures that destroy and instead create ones that bring healing. Even if you think your church doesn’t struggle with dysfunctional power issues, you still need to read this book.

So in the midst of reading McKnight’s book, he quotes David Brooks. Here is what Brooks writes…

When people make generosity a part of their daily routine, they refashion who they are. The interesting thing about your personality, your essence, is that is is not more or less permanent like your leg bone. Your essence is changeable, like your mind. Every action you take, every though you have, changes you, even if just a little, making you a little more elevated or a little more degraded. If you do a series of good deeds, the habit of other-centeredness becomes gradually engraved into your life. It become easier to do good deeds down the line. If you lie or behave callously or cruelly toward someone, your personality degrades, and it is is easier for you to do something even worse later on.

The truth seems to be that your habits and actions change you. Jesus told us to love our neighbors. And our enemies. We know these things. Or at least I hope we do. And yet…well…how does loving your neighbor become an every day reality? Could it happen when we make it a habit to actually love those around us? Consider the words of C.S. Lewis: Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.

Perhaps we need to rethink how we “make disciples.” This obviously doesn’t mean we stop reading, teaching, memorizing, and mediating on Scripture. But perhaps we take heed to what James writes:

You must be doers of the word and not only hearers who mislead themselves. Those who hear but don’t do the word are like those who look at their faces in a mirror. They look at themselves, walk away, and immediately forget what they were like. But there are those who study the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continue to do it. They don’t listen and then forget, but they put it into practice in their lives. They will be blessed in whatever they do.

James 1:22-25

What are your thoughts?

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The gospel is too readily heard and taken for granted, as though it contained no unsettling news and no unwelcome threat. What began as news in the gospel is easily assumed, slotted, and conveniently dismissed. We depart having heard, but without noticing the urge to transformation that is not readily compatible with our comfortable believing that asks little and receives less.

Walter Brueggeman

What Brueggeman has written is quite convicting to say the least. I know the gospel. I have heard it, preached it, studied it, written about it, and even have it memorized. And yet I can easily journey a path in which I am no longer becoming transformed by it.

Now what I am writing about here does not imply needing to have an emotional experience every time one reads the Bible. Instead, I prefer to think of it as a daily and steady walk of having the good news of Jesus change me into becoming more like him. In other words, I don’t treat the gospel as the channel 4 news story in which I watch one minute and forget the next. Rather, I let it marinate in my soul.

So what do you do to stop and listen and read and absorb the life, words, death and resurrection of Jesus? Or maybe a better question is when do you stop to listen and absorb?

Let’s don’t dismiss the gospel. I’m afraid it’s easy to do these days. Or at least it is for me. But what I have found as I do engage with it, that I don’t necessarily know it as well as I think I do. There’s always something new. I guess that’s the depth of love.

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I have just started re-reading A.W. Tozer’s book The Pursuit of God with a group of students. It’s been quite a while since I have read much from Tozer so I was excited when our reading group at the Baptist Student Ministry at Texas Tech wanted to tackle this book.

If you don’t know much about Tozer, I encourage you to look him up. Though not having a formal theological education, Tozer still is known as a “theologian, a scholar and a master craftsman in the use of the English language.” His heart was to know God and so his prayerful study of Scripture and other literature (especially the evangelical mystics) moved him to become a man whose heart burned with and for God.

At the outset of The Pursuit of God, it is obvious that Tozer is concerned with the superficiality of much Christianity in his day (Pursuit of God was first published in 1948). He writes in chapter 1:

The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.

page 23-24

Has much changed? Well, yes and no. But regardless, our need continues to be one to know God. In the midst of a pandemic and all the anxieties and struggles it has produced coupled with the past election and its creation of walls of division, the people of God, that is, the church, must hunker down and seek God and the story of peace he establishes.

Personally, I find myself listening to the wrong story at times. I get caught up in the panic of the hour rather than the narrative of our Creator. I get sidetracked by the 24 hour news instead of getting oriented by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I must allow God’s story to rewrite my own as well as allow it to help me see the reality behind what is put before me by the kingdoms of this world.

I’m not writing that we should not pay attention to what’s happening in the world around us. We most definitely should. But as we do, it’s not the narrative that defines us. We as the church must live and make our way by diving into into the grace, mercy, goodness, and love of God for as we do, we can then offer the world what it most desperately needs. We can then show the life of peace and unity offered in the true Kingdom of God.

We must know God! As Tozer makes clear, we must pursue him. We must pray for a hunger and a thirst to know him and to be content with nothing else. Let us taste and see that the Lord is good today (Psalm 34:8). Let us grow deep in our pursuit of him knowing that it is God’s presence for which we were created. And it is by his presence in which we go deeper and hunger for more.

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In the book The Way of the Dragon or The Way of the Lamb, Jamin Goggin and Kyle Strobel write:

Jesus was grounded in an unhurried existence that allowed him to be present; to listen carefully and faithfully; to overflow in mercy, grace, and love; and to know his calling (and to refuse to be seduced by callings that were not his or callings not done according to his way).

We know we are to be “on mission” with God? But what does that look like? I think the quote above gives us a glimpse.

Jesus was unhurried. I don’t think this is a characteristic that describes many in our culture today. We seem to always be pressed for time with somewhere to be and something to do. Now I don’t think being unhurried means we are not diligent about our work and days. However, I do think it speaks to a way of life that takes notice of others instead of always rushing from one place to another. We must realize the greater agenda of our days.

Jesus was present. Wherever we are, we need to be all there. What’s our biggest distraction? Most likely, it’s our smart phones. Don’t miss seeing those around you because your face is glued to a screen.

Jesus listened. What is one thing people need? They need to be heard. Though we have a great message to share, we must do so within the context of listening. This requires time and patience. Maybe we should not just pray for someone in whom to share the gospel but also pray for someone in whom we can sit and listen?

Jesus overflowed with mercy, grace, and love. We need to be people with grace and love on tap. I believe we do “love people.” But we often don’t like them. In other words, we love people abstractly. However, we must love with more than just with words. It must be concrete and specific. This is where the rubber meets the road.

Jesus knew his calling. Jesus knew who he was and what he was on earth to do. Though many things could have distracted him (consider the temptations by Satan in the dessert in Matthew 4), he stayed true to the race set ahead of him. We must do the same. And we do so as we continue to keep our eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-2).

Jesus told his disciples that just as the Father had sent him, so he was sending them (John 20:21). This applies to us. His mission is now our mission. His heart is now our heart. This also means that his method of how he accomplished his mission must be ours as well.

So let’s begin living an unhurried life while being present to those around us while listening and showing love in all we do and say. And let us not get distracted about who we are and what we are called to be for the world. This is our mission!

Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash

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One of the most important questions we as Christ-followers need to ask ourselves is, what is God doing in and with this world? Why is this so important? Because it’s the answer to this question that determines our identity which in turn sets the direction for our lives. We as Christ’s disciples are not just marking time on this earth until he returns, but have a purpose, or you might want to say, a mission. And this mission is found as we ask ourselves, what is God doing?

So what is God doing? And what’s our role? I think all of Scripture, not just parts of it (ie. the Great Commission in Matthew 28:16-20) answers these questions for us. In Genesis 1-2, we read that God created this world and breathed life into us as humanity. It was our creation “in his image” which was the climax of all he made as he commanded us, in relationship with him, to rule and perfect this world or temple (much more could be written about this) in which the presence of God dwelled.

Unfortunately, we tried to usurp the role of God as we became convinced to doubt the goodness of God (see Genesis 3). As a result of our disobedience, the world became a place of envy instead of gratitude, pride instead of humility, and strife instead of peace. God, however, did not wash his hands of us and what he made. Instead of abandonment, God continued to pursue his creation as he began the mission of making right what was made wrong.

We read in Genesis 12 that his call to Abram was to bless him and his family in order that he would bless all peoples on the earth. And as his family became a nation, the people of Israel, they were to be a “kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:6). They were to be the ones God used to begin restoring this earth to once again be his kingdom, the place where he dwelled openly and freely.

Chances are, you know the rest of the story. Israel became just as rebellious and needed saving just as much as all the nations around her. So Isaiah spoke of a new servant, one that would suffer (Isaiah 52:13-53:12), that would bring healing and forgiveness for Israel and the world around her. Jeremiah spoke of a day when the law would not be written on stone tablets (as was the 10 commandments) but would instead be written on people’s hearts (Jeremiah 31:33). Ezekiel spoke, much like Jeremiah, that “hearts of stone” would be replaced by “hearts of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).

These promises made in the Old Testament, of which the ones listed above are just a sampling, came to completion in Jesus. Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection began a new day. The Kingdom which had been thwarted because of our sin was breaking into the world once again. What God began in Genesis 1 is now in the beginning stages of being restored. And as we read in Revelation 21-22, it will one day be completed. “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever” (Revelation 11:15).

So what is God doing in and with this world? He is restoring and renewing it! He is reconciling “to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20). “All things” are being united in Christ, “things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10).

What does all this mean for us? How does this story of God shape us? To start with, we must remember that we are God’s image bearers. We have a role to play in God’s mission for this world. What we do is important. And I have to say here that though proclaiming the gospel is a vital part of our mission, it is not the whole of it. What I hope you glean from this is not that we should deemphasize sharing the gospel (there is plenty I have written about it’s necessity), but that we should elevate everything else we do in life as part of the mission of God as well. “What if we ponder,” writes Michael Wittmer, “what it means to be to follow our crucified Christ as we close a deal, type a report, sort the mail, care for our employees, or prepare a lesson?” (See Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright & Heaven is A Place on Earth by Michael Wittmer)

Bottom line: our role is vital to God’s mission of renewing this earth. This is why we were created and now saved. This is why we are told to pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven” (Matthew 6:10). This is why we become engineers, doctors, lawyers, painters, construction workers, day care workers, etc…. This is why we plant cotton (at least many of us in West Texas), say “hello” to strangers, and help those in need. And of course, this is why we share the story of Jesus and ask people to follow him.

This is good news for us! The Kingdom has broken in and we as God’s icons are all wrapped up in it. So no matter whether you work on Wall street or pick up trash on Wall street, you are vital to the Kingdom. And all you do matters! As Michael Wittmer asks: “What if we ponder what it means to follow our crucified Christ as we close a deal, type a report, sort the mail, care for our employees, or prepare a lesson?” This is who you are in this world. This is your direction in this life. Follow it!

Photo by Brett Zeck on Unsplash

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If you asked someone to draw a picture of church, what would he/she draw? Would it be large a-framed type building with a steeple on top? Or would it be a group of people? And if it is a group of people, what would they be doing? Would they all be found in the a-framed building singing or listening to a sermon?

I wonder if we sometimes become confused as to what church is. The reason I think this is because that most times, when I observe any sort of print advertisement or social media invite to a church, the photo with it encompasses bright lights, a worship band on a stage, and people singing with raised hands (much like the photo above). Now before you jump to conclusions, I’m not against lights, worship bands, or singing. I’m just wondering if this type of picture does justice to what church is and should be.

It is true that worship is a vital part of church. After all, we become like what we worship. Plus, God is deserving of our praise as he has rescued us out of the mess we created for ourselves. As we gather as the people of God, we must declare his goodness, grace, mercy, love, kindness, and holiness.

But what I’m concerned about is whether or not the pictures we draw or photos of church we post really show what church is? Is it just about singing? Is it just about showing up to a building and listening to a sermon? Is not church bigger than an event at a specific time and specific place?

Once again, don’t read between the lines here. I’m not against any style of worship necessarily although I do think we need to think a bit more theologically about what it means to worship corporately. And I’m not against buildings nor meetings. What I’m trying to convey is church is more than these things.

Church is a people. I think we know this. It’s not a building. I think we know this too. And it’s also not just a group who gathers to sing contemporary songs to God led by a praise band. I think we know this as well. However, our photos of church don’t show it.

Whenever I picture church, I think of an older couple who become like grandparents to a young boy whose family is currently in disarray. I picture a young married couple who visits an elderly man each week who can’t make it to his Sunday School class any more because of health. I picture a man and his family who are struggling financially being taken care of until they get their feet back under them. Bottom line: I picture a family.

This family is the family of God. God is the Father! And this family, as God as Father and the Son as savior and the Spirit as empowerer, has a mission to the world around them. It is to declare and demonstrate, by their sacrificial love for one another, that a new Kingdom has been inaugurated through the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is a Kingdom in which all are invited. And it is a Kingdom in which includes a new way of thinking, a new way of living, a new identity, and new brothers and sisters…the church!

Luke writes in Acts that the early believers spent their time learning from the apostles, and they were like family to each other. They also broke bread and prayed together. Everyone was amazed by the many miracles and wonders that the apostles worked. All the Lord’s followers often met together, and they shared everything they had. They would sell their property and possessions and give the money to whoever needed it. Day after day they met together in the temple. They broke bread together in different homes and shared their food happily and freely, while praising God. Everyone liked them, and each day the Lord added to their group others who were being saved (Acts 2:42-47).

How do we put all this in one photo? How can we draw it all on one piece of paper? Not sure it’s possible! But then of course, that’s the dynamism of being the people of God. Still shots don’t do it justice!

Photo by Shaun Frankland on Unsplash

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Repentance! What comes to mind when you hear this word? I imagine for some, especially those who are not-yet-Christ-followers, do not think highly of it. I’m afraid their mental picture of repentance is giving up something they enjoy and which brings pleasure in turn for taking up a life of hum-drum boredom made up of rules. It’s like the guy who was asked why he didn’t talk to people about God of which his reply was: “I don’t want to burden people with him!” 

Is this idea of turning from a life of excitement to a life of drudgery really the idea behind repentance? I hope we know it’s not. God did not call us to himself to heap a burlap sack of demands over our shoulders, but to lift us out of the quicksand we drudge through every day trying to make sense of our lives. Repentance is, according to Peter, refreshing!!!

Personally, I’m not sure I have always thought of repentance as refreshing. I guess some of it has to do with my mindset of “Repent and be saved” as a an old-school hell-fire and brimstone revivalist preacher phrase. More emphasis was placed upon what you were repenting from than what you were repenting toward though no doubt we must not deny the reality that we have sinned against God.

But Peter, in his second recorded speech in Acts, declares to the Jews to “repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago” (Acts 3:19-21).

To repent, to change one’s mind, to head in a new direction, to pursue God and pledge allegiance to him, is refreshing! This word “refreshing” that Peter uses refers to a “cooling” to relieve trouble or to dry out a wound. The only other time this word can be found in Scripture is in the Greek translation of the Old Testament in Exodus 8:11 “where it refers to relief from the plague of frogs” (Darrell Bock, Acts). Bottom line, this word refers to a new life of rest (consider Hebrews 3-4).

When we offer people the opportunity to turn back to God therefore, we are asking them to join a “time of refreshment.” We are encouraging them to experience the presence of God, to have their sins completely removed, and to be a part of God’s kingdom coming to earth as he will one day restore all things. It is to join a life of “shalom” or wholeness. It is to live life as was designed by our Creator.

Granted, not all is as it should be…yet! Though there are times of refreshment in the present, there is a future day in which “new heavens and new earth” will be made (Revelation 21:1). There will be a day when the whole creation will be “set free from its slavery to decay, to share the liberty of the glory of God’s children.” (Romans 8:21). Ultimate refreshment is on the horizon.

So let’s repent! And may we encourage others to do the same. Let’s enter into the rest and refreshment of God knowing that there is much more to come. This is indeed good news!

Photo by Tadeusz Lakota on Unsplash

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