Confessing Jesus ...

Do you follow Jesus?  It is a relatively simple question, but a loaded one as well.  Any idiot can claim to be a Christian.  I did.  I do.  But I think being a Christian, might just be a different thing, than truly following Jesus.  It’s weird but when I think about being a Christian, it is almost as if we are discussing a term based in the past.  Christ came, Christ died, Christ was raised … and Christ left.  We have been waiting for Him to return for more than 2,000 years.  Following Jesus however, has the air of the present.  To follow Jesus today, implies that Jesus is still actively leading, an active leader, today.  To follow Jesus is somehow in the now, in the right now.  I am not just waiting for Christ to return, I am waiting for Jesus to make my very next decision for me.  To show me what to do next, and now.  That begs the question, how do I hear Jesus give me direction?  I have His word, yes.  But many of the decisions and situations that come up in my life seem out-of-scope from what the Bible says.  Yet to follow Jesus, the conundrum remains, how do I keep hearing from Him in the now, when others seem more content to follow Him by association some 2,000 years ago.

And if I truly follow Jesus, am I willing to admit that?  Being a Christian makes me part of the majority in this country, so less worries there.  But following Jesus, looking for Jesus to literally tell me what to do next – that puts me in a very small minority – a minority that most others simply call crazy.  People who look for God’s voice are just called nuts.  Because so few of us hear it.  So few of us want it.  Most Christians have the attitude that God helps those who help themselves (perhaps the most anti-Christian sentiment ever uttered).  But that attitude keeps you in charge, and God on the back burner, for use only in times of great emergency beyond your control.  It likely means you do not even attempt to ask Jesus about what clothing you will wear today.  Jesus is not for stuff like that.  But in some cases I wish He was.  Jesus gone, allows modesty to leave the building, allows designers to overwhelm it, allows fads to dictate self-worth, the list goes on and on.  All because most of us would not even attempt to include Jesus in a clothing decision, let alone ask Him to lead it.  Those people are crazy.  I am crazy.

My crazy though, is to believe so much, as to think I should include Jesus in every decision, even the stupid ones, even the small ones, especially in the ones that will impact others.  My crazy recognizes my crazy enough to know He should be making my decisions, because when I make them, the results are so far from perfect you could drive a wedge the size of the Grand-Canyon between them.  Even when my intentions are good, what I try for, and what I get seem miles apart.  To publicly acknowledge that would be at the least, humiliating.  To admit my failures, mark my history, is not something to brag about.  And all of that, because I trusted my own abilities instead of looking to Jesus for what He might have wanted as it occurred.  Or asking for His help while it was occurring, instead of asking Him to clean up my mess long after it occurred.  Perhaps that is the difference between Christian and Jesus follower in my mind.  The matter of seeking forgiveness verses seeking to live in a way that requires much less forgiveness, and yields much more obedience in the first place.

So if you share my faith in Jesus, not just the whole Christianity thing, but very specifically in the following behind Jesus thing, are you willing to admit it?  Luke talks about this in his gospel letter to his friend Theophilus in chapter twelve.  He picks up with Jesus speaking in verse 8 saying … “Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God: [verse 9] But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God.”  Imagine Jesus as a proud parent, as your proud parent.  You do something in secret like help someone else for no reason, no reward, and no credit.  That is the kind of act, our proud heavenly parent would like to give vocal credit to in heaven.  But instead of acknowledging Jesus in your actions, you deny Him, and lift up yourself.  After all, you did these things.  No one influenced you.  They were your acts of charity.  Jesus deserves none of the credit, so you give Him none.  And so in heaven, when your proud parent so wanted to lift you up to the angels of God.  When they ask about you, Jesus must still tell them you remain in denial about what impact Jesus is trying to make on your life.  You deny Jesus.  So Jesus is forced to deny you.  A pattern that if continued forever is a highway to hell, in the present, and at the end of all things.

But this kind of mistake can be undone.  Luke continues in verse 10 saying … “And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven.”  So lets get back to my crazy for just a minute.  I am still trying to follow Jesus in the hear and now.  I am listening for Him.  And to whisper in my ear the Holy Spirit is sent.  It is the Spirit of God, the third personage we understand so little about.  But despite our lack of full understanding, it is the Holy Spirit who is the mechanism by which we hear Jesus in the now.  The Holy Spirit never contradicts the word of God in the Bible (after all He inspired that too).  Nor does the Holy Spirit contract the Ten Commandments or any other law of love (again those are His laws too).  But the Holy Spirit fills in the gaps between the past and present, and whatever situations and decisions you face in the now.  That is the gift we were sent.  That is not just some method of babbling on in languages not even a Dothraki could understand.  It is about purpose, and meaning, and accomplishment – your life in the here and now, guided by the Jesus you wish to follow.

So when you sin, or come up short, or perhaps deny Jesus for something Jesus clearly influenced you to do.  Jesus is happy to forgive you, happy you finally saw the wisdom of coming back to Him, happy He will be able to help you truly live.  Jesus wants your life to be so much more than it is today.  Forgiveness is the first step in that journey.  If you seek it, the Holy Spirit comes next.  But the Holy Spirit is the mechanism to keep moving on this journey.  If you start denying the mechanism, you have left yourself without a way forward.  That is a problem that cannot be fixed.  And so many of us do not even want to talk about the Holy Spirit, let alone embrace Him with both hands and arms.  We are so caught up in the false images of the Holy Spirit’s work, we overlook the real ones.  There are a good deal more spiritual gifts than just two.  Speaking in tongues (which is actually the ability to speak or decipher languages you don’t know already – very much like google translate, without the google translate).  And healing people which has become more and more rare, is far from the entire list.  And who do you think is the arbiter of the gifts we are given?  So have we collectively decided to ignore the single greatest gift we were ever sent (by Jesus I might add)?

Let’s talk about blasphemy for just a minute.  Blasphemy most often comes in two forms; taking credit for something that belongs to God (imagine how often we do that, elevating ourselves to the place of God).  Or blaming God for something He actually has no part in (like say, what we do all the time when tragedy strikes us).  Now let’s talk about salvation for just a minute.  Our desire to be saved from sin, from ourselves really.  What we want is to be the creature our Lord would have us be.  That salvation has been promised to us as a gift of Jesus Christ.  But what do we do?  We take credit for it, by stating we have a “partnership” with God.  And in so doing, we cut off the mechanism (the Holy Spirit) from doing His work in our lives, because we keep placing “self” at the center of our salvation instead of Jesus.  And in the same breath, when tragedy strikes us we call it “an act of God”.  When we are not healed, or not made whole, we go further blaming God for not doing, what we all know He has the power to do.  We never interpret what happens to us as “His will” unless it is exactly what we want to happen to us.  Our thought processes for taking credit, and casting blame – are the two things that keep us from seeing the true power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  We need to undo both, and learn to trust.

Jesus continues in verse 11 saying … “And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say: [verse 12] For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.”  Apparently Jesus sees my crazy.  But He also sees the hatred the world will express to anyone who loves like He loves.  True servants, true followers of Jesus, submit to Jesus, and the Holy Spirit teaches them how to love like that.  He begins to inhabit our hearts and reform them from the inside out.  While that prospect looks awesome to the follower of Jesus, it looks crazy and dangerous to the world outside.  It may even be infuriating to church leadership, so much so, they may be the very ones who accuse you and put you in front of the state to defend your very lives in court.  It has happened before.  It is still happening.  The different stand out.  Loving like Jesus loves is very different.  But Jesus says, here is another gift for you.  When these situations come up, and you know your life is on the line.  Don’t prep.  You heard me, take NO thought of what you plan to say and how.  Instead, the Holy Spirit will inspire your words right as you need them.  If you allow it, God will speak right through your very tongue and teeth to those in that court. 

Does this mean you will win your case and go free.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  But your temporary freedom in this world is not actually the goal.  Your ability to influence those who stand in accusation of you, and perhaps plant the seed that leads them to follow Jesus down the road is.  The convicting relentless power of the Holy Spirit is what you will have unleashed if you can get “you” out of the way.  If you accomplish that, you have accomplished more than your freedom in this world.  You have accomplished their freedom in the next one.  That is mission-one for the follower of Jesus.  All lives to His glory.  All actions to lead to that goal.  It might be why I ask Jesus about my clothing or about my diet, or about a hundred other seemingly stupid decisions, that have impacts outside of what I can see.  It is why I am happy to be called crazy, if my crazy is grounded in my attempt to follow Jesus in the here and now.

Luke continues in verse 13 saying … “And one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. [verse 14] And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you? [verse 15] And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.”  So a follower of Jesus back in the day asks Jesus a question many of us do – help me get what was due to me by the person that owes me.  Seems like a reasonable request.  You are not asking more than you are due.  You just want what you are owed.  Of course there is always a financial aspect to this.  The response of Jesus (proud parent to us all), the question you ask is the wrong one.  You do not need Jesus to act as a judge between men yet.  You instead to evaluate your “need” for the financial gain you seek.  Didn’t Jesus just tell us to rely upon God for what we need that day, and that day alone?  If we trust God this way, we look to God to provide, not actually to what we are owed by others.  The danger is not our survival, it is about our desire to be financially stable (on our own).  We value stability as if a collection of money would protect us from harm.  It looks that way, but it does not.  The true underlying motive of our desire for financial stability is the idea that we will have to trust “no-one” for our security – including God.

So Jesus told them a story to illustrate the point picking back up in verse 16 saying … “And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: [verse 17] And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? [verse 18] And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. [verse 19] And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.”  You will note, we start in our story with someone who has already been blessed, he is already rich before this incident occurs.  He already has fields, a harvest, and barns.  But this harvest is so great it would more than overflow them.  He has what he needs.  He is faced with more.  What does he do?  What do we all when confronted with more?  We look for even more than that,  So the rich man schemes to tear down the small barns, build greater, fill them with the excess harvest, then quit worrying about working ever again.  He will be living the dream.  Does he need any of this?  No.  All of it was a gift from God in the first place.  But in that gift was supposed to be a blessing.  Instead that blessing was going to be aimed in just one place – at me, at self.

Jesus continues in verse 20 saying … “But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? [verse 21] So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”  Giving is why even God has the glory.  He holds nothing back from us, even so much as the life of His Son, in exchange for our disobedience, to pay our punishment.  Yet our natural inclination is to take His gifts and apply them inward.  Even the gifts of the Spirit we tend to squander on ourselves, and only our inner circle.  They were not meant to be used in that way.  You see, to add to my crazy, I know that following Jesus is not the path to great wealth.  It is supposed to be impossible to hold great wealth and still be behind Jesus, following His every move.  For Jesus gave His wealth to us.  We should be doing that for each other.  It is not impossible to encounter money when following Jesus, but holding on to it, was not the best use of it.  More for the world to consider as crazy.  A rich person willing to shed their riches, that does not happen often within the realms of “sane” people.  But it does happen in the hearts that begin to see love like Jesus loves.  Blessings are meant to be shared and given away.

So much of my prayers, are prayers for things I should not be asking for.  So perhaps a better prayer for me, is to ask Jesus to want whatever He wants, desire whatever He desires, and get rid of the self-centered stuff in me, cause again, when I try to do it myself, it never works out very good.  You don’t need to win the lotto and give it all away to prove you would to Jesus.  Instead, with whatever you have today, find a way to share it with someone else, for no credit, no reward, no recognition – done in secret.  And be sure to praise Jesus for even the opportunity to give like that.  And watch your proud heavenly parent lift your name up in heaven to all His heavenly angels of God.  Finally, God says about you, a child who gets it.  Finally, a child who is already living like We live here in heaven.  Finally, a child like Enoch who may be ready to leave that world and live here at the end of all things.  I sure wish I could give Jesus a moment like that, don’t you?