Isms...Commercial, consumer, material: And Jesus

Jesus comes to the earth with nothing, tells his followers to give what they have to the poor, takes nothing with him to the cross, asks for nothing when he is offered something on the cross, and doesn't force his followers to be his followers. And yet, during Christmas, I am reminded of the crazy ways in which we twist Jesus words to fit our own context. When Jesus says "take care of the widow" or "give what you have to the poor" we automatically say, "Yes, but Jesus also said that the poor would always be with us." Oh, that we would stop trying to create the gospel into something full of the "isms" above and understand the simple gospel to be life changing, powerful, hard, and challenging.

There is a disconnect between what I just said above and what I live out each and every day. I work for a very generous, amazing church that gives me a generous paycheck. When I recieve this check, my thought is not "how can I use this to invest in the poor" rather it is "how can I get more stuff for me?" Is this contrary to the gospel? Is this contrary to what Jesus said? I must look at my heart and search my heart to know if this is something that is taking precedence in my life. If my heart is bent towards getting stuff, if my heart is not bent towards responding to who my Savior Jesus Christ is, then it's wrong!

Throughout the Old Testament, we find that God calls the Israelites to a "right heart condition." If the Israelites didn't have a right heart condition, there were consequences. There were things that God would discipline his people with. Sometimes, it meant captivity. Sometimes, it meant famine. I wonder if America Christianity will experience captivity or famine? Not literally, but I wonder if God will say to his people, "Your hearts are far from me!" I know there are periods in my life where my heart is far from God. I do all the right things, but my heart is not in the right place. In Malachi 1, we find that God desires a change in the heart condition of the people, he could care less about the sacrifices that they continue to bring.

This Christmas season, with commercialism, consumerism, and materialism inundating my life, I pray that you would inundate and make me understand what it means to live as you lived here on earth! Give me the strength to meet the challenge, to go through the hard times, and to give freely when you call me to do that!

A Church Plant.

This last month, our church hired Pastor Craig as the first church plant pastor. There is a great excitement as we think about the future of reaching Western Sedgwick County for Jesus Christ. I often wonder how things will work out though. I wonder how finances will work. I wonder how leadership will work when people go from the mother church to the daughter church. I wonder how children's ministry will be affected, how youth ministry will be affected, how adults will be affected, how staff will be affected... And I realize that I just don't know.

Faith is believing in what I cannot see and this is a venture that requires faith from many people. It requires faith for those folks that will head out to the Goddard Area church and it requires faith that stay at the mother church. Faith that God will provide in miraculous and tremendous ways, faith that he will continue to orchestrate us towards the vision that he has given us, faith that his arm is not too short and that he will ask us to do incredible things for his kingdom.

I realize that my fears and worries are quite human. Jesus says, "Do not worry. About anything." And often I worry about alot of things. I am learning to rest in Jesus and am beginning the early stages of understanding what it means to be a "kingdom thinker" as Jesus was. He was constantly focused on his purpose for coming to earth. He came to bring truth to the world around him. He was truth. He came to bring the relationship back into being between God and man. A relationship that was personal and intimate. And to do this, he had to die. It was all part of his purpose. When Jesus talks about the kingdom, he is talking about bringing truth to the world around him. He uses the phrase, "the kingdom of God is like" several times throughout the gospels. My hope and prayer is that he will teach me to think in this paradigm.

God, take my worry. Be the conductor in this vision driven venture that requires me to believe without seeing right now. Be my guide, my fortress and my desire...