Walk The Line

Where is the line? I spoke of it on Sunday; that line in you that you and I draw to simply say, “Jesus this is where you stop.” That line that says, “God you end here and this is where I begin!” You say; “What line?” Don’t be foolish, we all have it.

For some it is easy to spot in their loose living and indulgence of the worldly pleasures that offer them temporary satisfaction for the eternal desires that burn within their hearts. For others it’s a little harder to see. It’s covered up by good Christian living, by that weekly service at your local church. It’s hidden beneath the title “Believer” but nonetheless it still exists. I personally think it exists just because we are here and God is in heaven.

So, what is your line? Let me ask you a few questions to see. What if I told you that following Christ…:

--meant giving up your entire 401K, your personal savings and your children’s savings, would you follow?

--meant you switch jobs to a company that could not pay you, and in turn you would pay the company over $150,000 to work there, would you follow? (Additionally you would have to work a second job to keep the roof over your head.)

--meant your child would be born with a defect that could hamper the rest of their life and you had to care for that child without insurance, would you follow?

--meant you lost close relationships with family members and friends (people you like and love), would you follow?

--meant your spouse would be constantly stressed and concerned each day about where the next dollar for food or clothes would come from, would you follow?

--meant on your best day at work would be followed by your worst day when someone who was there to help you stabbed you in the back and blamed you for it, would you follow?

--meant you stopped watching your favorite TV show due to its content, would you follow? (or just stop for a few weeks?)

--meant people would genuinely hate you, would you follow?

--meant you would encounter the devil 3 times and on two occasions you would almost lose your life, would you follow?

--meant that those that work with you would try to kill you, lie about you, demean you, rarely say thank you and take your family time, what little money you have and then ask for more, would you follow?

--meant you just simply followed him and died with no glitz or glamour and nobody knew what you did, would you follow?

So would you do it? Would you quit your job, would you risk being arrested, jailed and living the rest or your life with a criminal background? Would you be willing to be forced out of your home, live in the streets? Would you be willing to suffer physical harm to your body, lose your kids or your husband or wife?

See I told you the line exists, if you’re honest and don’t just give the blanket response “YES” to the question “Follow me?”, you have found your line. That place where you are unwilling to go with Christ.

Now, don’t worry that you have found it; it’s actually a good thing. See in order to live life to the fullest with God you must first find this line and address it with honesty before God. Your human and many of the things I aforementioned take supernatural strength to overcome. But make no mistake, until you find and address the line you risk being a fan. Once you address it, you continue to follow. I love what one follower of Christ once said…To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. Once more, all that self-denial can say is: "He leads the way, keep close to him."—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” – Luke 14:27

Rules

August 11, 1995 was a fateful day in my life. I spent many years waiting for this day. I had for almost 5 years thought about it. For over a year I was planning for it. I had changed my life in order to meet the demands of that day. I had spent countless hours praying and even took two fasting retreats about this day. Hours upon hours of writing and thinking and hoping and wondering and a lot of money spent. I had incredible moments of being excited and dreadful moments of thinking it would never come.

What was that day you ask? Well it was the day I married my beautiful bride, Heather. Now with all my efforts to prepare for being a husband, with all the books I read and the counseling I took, I was never told about the unwritten “rules” of marriage. Granted, I knew about the written ones like:

1. Be faithful to her. As long as we both live I am going to be hers alone.

2. To provide for her. I’m going to meet her needs.

3. To be committed to her. For better or for worse.

But some of the unwritten rules took me off guard that I later found out about, like…

1. I am to know what I want for dinner.

2. I am not to make fun of her before 10 a.m….err scratch that…at all

3. I am to say out loud what I am thinking.

Rules that govern our life, but if I saw our entire relationship as a bunch rules I had to keep, I wouldn’t be very happy. But because I love my wife I find joy in being a good husband. I would do anything for her, and so doing the dishes, or putting the lid down on the toilet, or other extravagant acts of sacrifice are a joy for me—most of the time (except cleaning that pond out back…aughhh)

How many times have you wanted to be received with love but instead got a bunch of rules to follow? I don’t know if it was a church that taught you a lot of traditions and rules and regulations, or if it was just your assumption. But my guess is that if you never got past the rules you never really got around to studying the Gospel of Jesus or the Scripture. A Gospel that tells us why the rules are there, that they are only fulfilled God’s love and grace.

Instead you might have gotten guilt each weekend based on religious affiliation to rules. And when found short you were shown the door and told you where not wanted. If that is you; I know that the Ruler, Jesus Christ, would love to have you come back. He would love to have you come closer. I know His love and grace is greater than any love you have experienced. I am sorry for those experiences, I have had my own as well, but don’t let that hurt keep you from the healer. Seek Him and you will find Him and then the rule will fall into place.

And for those of you that just love the rules, please hear me. We must define Christianity, first and foremost, as the following of Jesus Christ. We cannot expect to recruit the world to a set of standards that we would never live by or follow if it wasn’t for a love relationship with Jesus Christ. They’re not going to get on board with that—unless it’s because they know Jesus. So it must, first and foremost, be about following and loving Christ.

(1 John 4:19) “We love because he first loved us.”

Go Up!

I sit in my new memory foam office chair as I type this evotional. I must say I am quite comfortable. Even after sitting in this chair for over 8 hours, I still am enjoying the relaxing nature of being at ease.

Are you where I am? Are you comfortable with your life? How long have you been sitting in your easy chair of faith? I love what John Maxwell says about this, “Comfort lulls us into complacency. We get accustomed to routine or familiar with a role, so we settle in. As leaders, we must relentlessly challenge ourselves not to let ease and security dissuade us from making the changes necessary to fulfill our vision.” I would add as followers of Christ we must be challenged to fulfill God’s vision for our lives, it does not come naturally.

There is no better partner in challenging our comfort zones than the Holy Spirit. He knows that true living is about us giving up control. He knows that life is a series of tradeoffs if we are going to grow. See, in order for you to take hold of something better, you have to let go of what you currently hold. In order to go up, you must first give up!

Though it seems backward to us, God teaches us that when we think we’re in control we are actually out of control, that when we feel strong we’re really weak. God tells us this so that we will acknowledge our weakness and humble ourselves before the Him. When we refuse to give up our comfort or control we build walls that at some point must and will be torn down by God. Andrew Murray said it this way: “Humility is the only soil in which virtue takes root; a lack of humility is the explanation of every defect and failure." POWERFUL, I am getting a little uncomfortable….

See, it’s when we let go of our need for comfort, our need to be in control, our need to glory in our strengths or accomplishments or our paycheck or our trophies or our co-workers’ approval or whatever it is that keeps you from abandoning a comfortable version of the cross—it’s then that God does in our lives what he did in Christ’s death. It’s then that God does in our hearts what He did for the cross. And He takes followers who were hanging by a thread and bolsters their spirits. He takes followers who were at their weakest moment and uses it for enormous kingdom good. He takes followers who are all but defeated and He turns their testimonies into life-giving messages of truth and hope, all to His glory. He turns Fans into fully dedicated followers! (See 2 Corn 12:9)

(1 Corinthians 1:22) “Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles…For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.”

Give Up

In Matthew chapter 19 there is a familiar story of a rich young ruler that approaches Jesus and asks Him a great question. “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16) What a great question! Jesus answers this man with the phrase “keep the commandments” (Exodus 20:12-16). The ruler replies, “Hey I have done these good things since my youth, what else to I lack?”. Jesus then tells him to give up everything he owned and follow Him.

Wow, how many times throughout history has this little story been repeated. A person cries out to God about something more to life, (i.e. eternal life) they think it’s about doing things for God, state to God that they are pretty good at keeping the rules and then Jesus asks them to do the very thing they are not willing to give up (lifestyle, habits, preconceived notions, etc…).

The surprise in this story is that everyone in that day expected the rich people to be the closest to God. After all it was the rich that gave the money to the temple, had the time to study the scriptures and even in this case was able to obey the ten commandments fully. The rich had the advantage so it was a surprise to hear Jesus tell them that the rich often have a very hard time with the kingdom of God.

See the problem that we, who have a lot, often have is that the things we have usually have us! Sure we can enjoy our blessings and take time to appreciate what we have, but the test to determine if it has us comes when Jesus asks us to surrender it. If we won’t surrender something we choose distance over intimacy. In other words we don’t want to really know Him and have Him know us we just want to know about Him.

As a result we exchange that desire to be close with an arms’ length relationship based on knowledge. We stay content to pack our lives with requirements and “to-do’s” and lose our chance to actually know our creator. And in that moment do the same thing the rich young ruler did.

“When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.” (Matthew 19:22)