The Obedience of One Man

Revival has been on mind lately.  I have been reading about revivals to glean some insight about what sparks revival in a particular place and time.  Recently I stumbled upon a revival that I had never heard of.  It’s called the Fulton Street Revival and it occurred in New York City in 1857. Jeremiah Lenphier started a noontime prayer meeting On September 23rd. His story is a powerful one and you can see it here:

I love this story because it reminds me that one person can make a significant impact on the world.  Jeremiah’s risk to follow after God was inspiring.  He had no way to know how things were going to end.  For all he knew he was going to be alone praying by himself and for the first 30 minutes of his very first meeting that is exactly how it looked.  Yet, Jeremiah saw the need to pray for his city and its people.  Then, an amazing thing happened. God moved in the city and people came to know Jesus.  I wonder what would happen in our own cities if we followed Jeremiah’s example on Fulton Street.  What might God do if we gathered together to pray for our city and its people? How might God move in our communities and our churches?  How might God move in us? Lets find out!

Acts 1:14 “All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers”

Acts 2:42 “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers”

James 5:16 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”

 

Jedi Mind Trick Evangelism

Image via Wikipedia

As a Pastor, I find myself wishing I could use the Jedi mind trick on people to get them to do what they should do.  No mess, no fuss…just a wave of the hand and a few simple words to convince people that they need to live for Jesus.

If only it were that easy.  If the Jedi Mind Trick were and effective evangelism I could sit on my couch while watching my favorite TV shows after having Jedi mind tricked whoever passed by me that day and in know time the world would be made Christian.  It would mean I would never have to fear rejection. I would never have awkward conversations about my faith.  I would never have to show or compassion to anyone.  I would never really have to share the Gospel.  How easy it would all be if the Jedi Mind Trick was an an evangelism tool?

It seems to me that while I can’t imagine anyone employing a Jedi mind trick approach to evangelism, we tend to look for the magic formula or the quick and easy way to reach people for Christ with a minimal amount of effort.  We do what we can to avoid making people feel uncomfortable or to avoid rejection and we almost but never really share Jesus with others using actual words because we are afraid.  I know I am often hindered in sharing my faith because I allow my fears to dictate my behavior instead of allowing God’s love for me and others to drive out the fears in my life.

To see others come to Christ more often than not requires hard work, relationship building, trust building, and sacrifice.  It requires us to rely on the work of the Holy Spirit in our life and in the life of the person that we are building relationships with instead of cheap tricks and tactics that allow for us to sit idle without doing the hard work.  Much is required for those who follow Christ…the cost of making disciples is high.  If we are going to make disciples a simple wave of the hand will not work.  Magic formulas won’t work.  We must involve ourselves in the lives of others (and our communities) as messy as that might be so that the Holy Spirit can provide  opportunities to bear witness to Jesus in the messiness of life.  Those opportunities will not come to us as we sit on our couch hoping that God won’t ask anything to difficult of us or as we wait for him  give us everything we think we deserve in the form of big houses, cars, or money. God isn’t so much interested in our best life now as He is interested in his followers living up to the calling That Jesus left to us to make disciples.

Answering the Door

Image by Aunt Owwee via Flickr

I have been thinking a lot about the phrase “God with us” lately.  His presence seems to be an ever present and reoccurring theme for me as of late. I have come across the verse from Revelation 3: 20 a number of times recently so I been meditating on its meaning.

Here i am! I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will com in  and eat with him and he with me. (NIV)

Richard Foster comments on this passage in this way,

“The wonderful verse ‘I stand at the door and knock…’ was originally penned for believers and not unbelievers. We who have turned our lives over to Christ need to know how very much he longs to eat with us, to commune with us.He desires a perpetual Eucharist feast in the inner sanctuary of the heart.” (Celebration of Discipline)

I can’t help but think that so many of us are lost in life or feel disconnected from God because we have simply ignored the knocking. Could it be that  our lives have become so full of busyness, technology, running from place to place, that we have simply not noticed that Jesus has been knocking on the door waiting for us to take the time to invite Him in and commune with Him.

Stuck on the couch

Image by SimplySchmoopie via Flickr

For the last several days I have for the most part been stuck on the couch dealing with severe back pain because of a herniated disk.  Because of this I have been in a position that I don’t much care for — depending on others to help me.  My wife has been an  amazing help to me through this as have a number of people from our church.

This is such a tough place for me to be.  I hate to rely on others for my care.  It feels unnatural to allows others to do for me what I should be able to do for myself.  The truth is,  at the moment, I can’t do for myself so I must do what comes so unnaturally to me… allow others to help. I hate it, but God is teaching me something significant here.  While I am stuck on the couch, the world has not come to end.  God has raised folks up to help me in a number of different ways and to continue on in my ministry where I have been unable in the last couple of days.  Perhaps I should pay more attention to what God is capable of doing in my weakness instead of what I can do in my strength.

Consider 2 Corinthians 12: 7-10

Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,

My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become. (The Message)

You are Loved

I know I posted this video awhile back, but I was thinking about how much God Loves us and this song came to mind.

I hope you remember that you are loved today!

More Than Meets the Eye…

When I was growing up in the 80′s there were a number of great cartoons.  There was G.I Joe, Voltron, and Mask.  These were great, but my all time favorite was Transformers.  I couldn’t tell you why I liked it better than the others exactly, but I knew I would follow Optimus Prime into battle without hesitation.  For those who don’t know transformers, which seems unlikely but not impossible, the idea is that giant robots turn into things like cars, trucks, and planes.  There is more to it, but that is enough for the idea. Now…lets see what what me might learn from their theme song shall we.

I think the phrase that sticks out the most to me this morning is “more than meets the eye”  Just as the transformers hide in plain sight, I think people do it to. We put on our public persona’s and when asked how we are doing we may answer with fine or good when the reality is our life is privately a mess.  We all wear masks.  We hide behind them with the hope that nobody will be able to see how broken or messed up we really are. In fact, we do this so often that sometimes we forget who we are and begin to believe the things we tell others.  I think this is why honest self-examination is so important to us. There is more to each of us than meets they eye, sometimes more than we realize about ourselves.  If you have been hiding behind your masks, then consider this from Psalm 139:

²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.

²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

May we allow God to search the very depths of our soul and reveal to us what is behind the masks that wear…may He show each of us what is hidden in our hearts that He might transform us to be more like Jesus.

Send Me on My Way…

I was listening to the Rusted Root song Send Me on My Way this morning and it got me to thinking about this passage in Isaiah.

Isaiah 6:1-9a

¹ In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. ² Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. ³ And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

⁴ At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

⁵ “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”

⁶ Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. ⁷ With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

⁸ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

⁹ He said, “Go and tell this people:

I know the song has nothing to do with this story about Isaiah, but I couldn’t help but think about  “Here I am.  Send me!”  in verse 8.  In this passage Isaiah’ sins are atoned for and his response is to answer God’s call.  I wonder how many of us respond to the forgiveness and atonement of our sins as Isaiah has here.  I know there have many time is my life where I have chosen to respond by saying “Not me God, send someone else.

In verse 9 God directs Isaiah to “Go and tell this people:” and then gives Isaiah a message to deliver in the following verses.  Each of us that have responded to the call to follow after Jesus have been given a message to deliver…we have been sent out to bear witness to the risen Christ Jesus.  Have you responded to that call by saying “Here I am.  Send Me” as Isaiah responded to his call, or have you responded by saying “Not me Lord, send someone else.”

Our message may be different from Isaiah’s, but God has sent each of us on our way to share the Gospel.  May we all respond with faithfulness as Isaiah did before us.

Oh…and in case you are unfamiliar with the Send Me on My Way song.  Here is the video.

Jesus died for the bad guys too…

I was taking my kids to pre-school this morning and my son Colm suggested we play a game.  I asked him what he would like to play and he said we should all take turns saying something about Jesus.  He started by saying that Jesus lived in his heart and on my turn, I said that Jesus died on the cross for us.  Colm responded by saying, “Jesus died for the bad guys too”.  I am amazed at the insight of my kids sometimes.  He understands at 4 years of age a concept that most adults never seem to be able to grasp a hold of.  I was exceptionally proud in that moment.

Colm understands that Jesus didn’t come so that good people could somehow earn their way to Heaven by doing enough good things to outweigh the bad things that are done.  Jesus came because each of us is in need of a Savior.  Nobody can ever be good enough to earn their way into Heaven.  Jesus died for each one of us…even who the world would deem the worst of us. The truth is, we are all broken and in need of Jesus no matter how bad we think we are…or how bad others think we are.  Scripture tells us that we all fall short of God’s glory.   It means what it says…all of us fall short.  Colm understands something profound…may we all have the same insight that he does…that each of us needs Jesus.

Life without Grandma…

Sorry I have been absent this week, but my family is in morning  the loss of my Grandma.  She battled the disease for 2 years before she succumbed to it on Wednesday April 14th.  Admittedly, it has been a rough couple of months for our family with the sickness of our daughter, the miscarriage of our baby, and the recent loss of Grandma.  I appreciate all of you have sent words of sympathy and well wishes…your prayers have been particularly appreciated.

Today I preached on the passage in Mark 4 where Jesus calms the storm.  This is one of the days where I really needed to here the “Peace, be still” phrase.  These three words have been really meaningful to me over the last month or two.  Every time I think the storm that is my life right now is raging beyond what I can handle, I here those words Jesus said in the boat…”Peace, be still”

I think I am going to be spending a lot of time with those words over the coming days and weeks.

May we all find the peace that surpasses all understanding in the middle of storms through Jesus.

P.S. I loved the new Doctor…He was mad and lovable and funny and to quote the previous two Doctors, He was “Fantastic” and “Brilliant”

Struggling Through Holy Week…

This is a tough week for Pastors.  With all the extra fanfare that this week gets in the church combined with the extra services like Sunrise, Good Friday, and Maundy Thursday…it is very difficult to catch your breath.  This has been an especially difficult week for my wife and I.  After 10 months of trying to get pregnant, we found out last week that we were pregnant.  We were so excited.  Less than a week later we were told that we were going to lose the baby.  No explanation.  It was devastating…and in all honesty still is painful to think about.

So in the middle of all of this…I am supposed to somehow preach Easter.  Good Friday I get.  Suffering and pain I understand right now, but how do I stand before three congregations on Sunday morning and preach about the Good News that is Jesus when I don’t feel it.

Now with all that being said, I still have no idea what shape my sermons will take on Sunday, but I am sure of this.  Despite my pain, God will be there and He will speak to people….even me.  He will continue to pour hope into the lives of people as the good news of the Resurrection is proclaimed.  By no means can I say that I am o.k. with what has happened, but I can say that if this week teaches us anything, Jesus suffers along with us.  He is present in our sorrows and in our grief.  He loves us.  I may not feel like preaching Easter this year, but I can’t think of a more appropriate time to hear about Jesus’ victory over sin and death.  I can think of no more appropriate message than that in the midst of the valley of the shadow of death, we need not fear evil because…in the beginning and the end and everywhere in between…Jesus.

So… as I ponder this Holy Week in terms of its relevance to my life, the life of the congregations I serve and for all those lost people out there who are in need of healing, I turn to Rocky for inspiration:

Jesus…help me move forward!!!