Selling A Mirage

The Gospel is about transformation. It is about how God became Sin on a cross which changed everything. And when people choose to accept Jesus' work on the cross and surrender to Him, then transformation is set into motion. Its all about transformation. We go from dark to light. Be become born again or born from above. We go from unsaved to saved. We go from being orphans to being adopted. We go from death to life. It is all about transformation. But it doesn't stop there. Our entire Christian lives are about transformation. In the gospels we read of these messed up, unpolished, rough people and he transforms them into kind, compassionate, loving people who became the leaders of the most powerful movement in the history of the world.

And for us that same transformation is the goal. To actually be transformed into the likeness of Christ. Jesus in his call to all disciples everywhere in Matthew 4:19 says that when you follow him something amazing will happen...he will change you. You will change. You will become something else. In the book of Corinthians, Paul says that the Christian life is about this transformation where the old is gone and the new has come. That you will become something new. You will be transformed. The gospel is about transformation.

Now this is where we come in. With God you always have an option. To accept him or not and here you have a choice to be transformed or not. Transformation can only happen through surrendering to the Holy Spirit. It's more than just reading our Bibles everyday. More than just going to church every week or going to a small group or serving. It is an active and intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit of God which brings about transformation. That means we have to surrender to the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We have to spend time with Him. We have to spend energy to get to know Him. We have to seek Him continually. The problem is that it is much easier to keep a list of do' and don't or a religion than to actively seek an intimate relationship. That is why there are so many Christians who go to church every week, read their Bible everyday, go to a small group and serve at church faithfully, yet they are just as mean, greedy, wealth seeking, cold and unloving as they were the day they accepted Jesus into their lives. And this kind of Christianity is a huge blow to the movement that Jesus is all about. Jesus is all about transformation. So when we share the gospel with people, we are essentially sharing them a gospel of transformation. But the key is not just he gospel that we are sharing it is also the gospel we are living. That is the gospel most people see. And if are not transforming, if we as followers of Christ are not actually changing into better people from the inside out then we are detrimental to Jesus' movement because and here is the key....."PEOPLE WILL NOT ACCEPT A GOSPEL OF TRANSFORMATION FROM UNTRANSFORMED PEOPLE!"

Power Boost

I think all of us have good plans for our lives. We want to be good people and do amazing things but somewhere along the journey of life, we come to a point where we feel powerless to actually do the things we want to do and become the people we want to be. This is not anything new. In fact, it seems to be the human condition from the beginning of time. There have always been people who wanted good things however they lacked the power. This had been the norm throughout history...UNTIL about two thousand years ago there was a community of people. They were followers of a certain Rabbi named Jesus. This Jesus, would walk around telling this community they kind of people they can be and the good things they can accomplish. For about 3 years they lived, ate, slept and did life together. Everything was going well for this community until one day the unthinkable happened. Their Rabbi was arrested. He was beaten. And finally he was crucified on a cross and laid in a tomb.

This community was shattered. They once again came to the conclusion that they lacked the power to be the people they wanted to be. They even stopped pursuing the life they had been working towards the last 3 years and went back to their old way of life. THEN something incredible happened. These people started to live differently. They started to live differently. They had passion and confidence. When people asked what had changed they had an amazing answer. These people believed that their Rabbi had actually been raised from the dead. And not only that, they believed that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead actually lived within them. They actually believed that! And they started living differently. They actually believed that they now had the power to live the lives and become the people they wanted to be. And guess what? They did it. They actually lived it out! And in the process they changed the course of human history.

My question is simple. Today there are many more people who claim to have the same spirit within them that this community did. How come we are not having the same impact as they did? Could it be that we don't actually believe it like they did? Could it be that we may read it in our Bibles and hear it in sermons but we don't really believe? And here is the real question, what if we started to believe it? What if we started to actually believe we had the same power that raised Jesus from the dead living inside of us? What if we actually believed Jesus when he said that we will do greater things then he did because of this power? What would happen to our families? What would happen to our neighborhoods? What about our schools? Our churches? Our cities? Our states? Our countries? Our World?

Too Late

I am just about to go to a friend's funeral and I was thinking about the things I would say to him if I could talk to him one more time. Bobby died of a sudden heart-attack last week. I found out about it on Tuesday morning and was obviously shocked. What makes it even more shocking to me was that we were supposed to have lunch on Thursday of last week. I had been meeting with Bobby once a week for the last 9 months in a Leadership class and we were getting together because he had graduated from the class a month ago and we just wanted to catch up. I had thought about the meeting with Bobby. At the meeting, I was going to tell him how proud I was of him graduating and sticking with the class. I was going to encourage him to continue doing the things God had called him to. Finally, I was going to share with him how much I appreciate him and his friendship. The thing is that I saw him, the Sunday before he died and I had the opportunity to say those things but I thought to myself that I was going to see him on Thursday and I would just tell him then. Unfortunately, Thursday never came for Bobby.

So the last couple of days I have been thinking about how many opportunities we have to tell the special people in our lives, how we feel about them but we put it off until a "special" day whether its a meeting, a birthday, a party or any day in the future. With Valentine's day approaching, I wonder how many people keep from telling their special someone how much they love them because they are going to tell them on Valentine's day. I wonder if any parent has a child's birthday coming up and that is when they are going to tell them how much they love them or maybe its an upcoming graduation and thats when you are going to tell him or her how proud you are of them.

I was going to tell Bobby the things that were on my heart on Thursday but Thursday came too late. We all have people in our lives that we need to share with, how we feel about them and I want to encourage you to do it today because tomorrow may be too late.

Learning to Follow

Recently, my wife and I took our 14 month old daughter Taylor to the mall. Taylor is at the age where she is getting more and more independent so she did not want to be held or pushed around in a stroller. She wanted to walk on her own. She is a pretty good walker, so we decided that would be fine. Well we put her down and mom had to go ahead to return something so it was just Taylor and I. As we walked, I lead the way with Taylor following. Taylor did great except that every couple of steps she would get distracted and either stop or go in a different direction. This was right before Christmas so there were lights, shiny ornaments, wreaths and lighted trees everywhere. It wasn't that she was purposely being disobedient rather she was distracted by things that seemed so attractive. The truth is that if she could actually touch the things she was distracted by, she would get bored of them real quickly but she can always have an adventure and with her dad. Still, these unfulfilling distractions were causing her to follow her father less closely.

By now you have probably guessed where I am going with this. In my spiritual walk, I act just like Taylor. My heavenly father has called me to follow Him and He has taken me on this walk called life. However, there are many times when although I love my father, I stop following Him as closely as I should because I am distracted by life's "shiny" and attractive objects. I may not even notice it but as I follow my father, my pace starts slowing down and I start to wander from the path He has set for me because of unfulfilling distractions.

But the good news for Taylor and I both is that the father's love is unlimited. You see, I love Taylor more than I ever though I could. I could never leave her. I would never desert her. So as I watched my daughter wander from the path I had set for her, I stopped reached my hand out and called out to her to start following me again. Sometimes, I had to wait longer than others and there were even times that I had to walk back to where she had stopped and help her get going again. This is exactly what God does to us. Even when we wander and stop following Him, sometimes He waits and sometimes He even meets us where we are "stuck" and helps us get going again because He loves us, He will never leave us or forsake us.

So, my challenge is to learn how to follow. I need to learn how to follow my amazing loving father without getting distracted by any and every shine object that promises fulfillment. I must learn how to continue to put one step in front of another and follow Christ closely at all times. It is only then, that I can experience the fullness life with God rather than enjoying God a few steps at a time.