Letting It All Go ...

What is the chief priority of your life?  To answer that, you might consider what thing, activity, or even person it is, that you are most invested in.  Sometimes the answer might surprise you.  We get so involved in what we do, our routines, that we stop thinking about what is most important to us, and just go about life.  But take a step back from it, and think about it for a few minutes and the answer begins to emerge.  You would think that for Christians, the answer would always be Jesus.  But if you measured your answer against what you actually do with your time, it is hard to say Jesus and back it up with what you do.  Or if you measured your answer with love for others, it is hard to truly say, that outside of your immediate circle you truly love “all” others the way Jesus truly loves them.  Finally if you measured your answer against where you spend the bulk of your money – does Jesus truly emerge as your number one financial priority.  It is the routine that deceives us.  We love our spouse, sometimes with great passion, or our children and families, and think that our love for others is what Jesus intended – how could it not be.  We give our tithes and offerings faithfully to the church, and then think we have met the Lord’s requirements and so our financial “obligations” have been met.  Many other believers do not give at all, let alone systemically.  And as for time, we make time to go to church, or to watch it online, and once again consider ourselves “good” Christians as a result.  Again, many other believers don’t even go or watch at all.

But what if I told you that all those efforts, while a good start, are nowhere near enough?  It is not the beginning of being a Christian that is so condemning, it is that we let ourselves become fully satisfied with the beginning of Christianity and never take one step farther in it.  Once more, the devil knows all this.  The devil may not be able to prevent you from becoming a Christian, but the next best thing he can do, is get you to become fully complacent in your Christianity.  Cause you to focus on what you do for Jesus, not who you are inside.  Once you buy in to the argument that you are “good” enough, you shouldn’t need to try any more than that right?  I would offer, perhaps it is the “trying” that is the fundamental cause of the disconnect.  For as we “try” to be Christians, we begin to see the cost of being a Christian.  Our time spent on spiritual things is measured.  Our money given to ministry or the poor, is ever measured in order to satisfy what we think is “appropriate”.  And our love offered to spouses and children and families is thought to ever be enough.  But to “try” reveals one fundamental flaw, it is action of effort, not behavior that is natural to “who” you are.  Jesus is trying to change “who” you are, He is not focused on the actions, until the motives drive the behavior naturally.

There is a recipe for what it meant to follow Jesus, to be a true Christian.  It sounds harsh, but let us give it a second look and see if what we first read as harsh is not meant to be so.  Luke records the very words of Jesus Himself on this topic in his gospel letter to his friend on what we believe and why.  It begins in the fourteenth chapter picking up in verse 25 it reads … “And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them, [verse 26] If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”  Yikes.  Hate your mom and dad?  Hate your wife and kids?  Hate those you call brothers and sisters?  All this sounds way more like Satan talking that Jesus.  But Jesus does not end his list there, it continues to the main point of this passage.  We are to “hate” our own lives.  What does that mean?  I ask again, what, or who, is the chief priority of your life?  Go back and take a quick look at the Law, and you find to love God comes first.  How you love mankind comes second.  Why?  Because you cannot do the second half of the Law if you have neglected the first half.  To truly follow Jesus requires we let it all go.  It means we allow Jesus to transform “who” we are.  That is a very personal transformation.  And nothing else can be more important to us than that.  Not friends, or even family, but beyond both of those things, - not even ourselves.

Clinging to “who” you are right now, will be the death of you.  We come to like ourselves.  All the self help books in the world teach us to do this very thing.  Love yourself.  Do this before you can love others, or have a good life.  But here is Jesus saying – come to hate yourself.  Stop clinging to this person you are and valuing, the current you, at the cost of who you could be post the transformation Jesus longs to bring to you.  What needs to change in your life, is not a deeper love of self, but the total absence of it.  A willingness on your part to let your whole life go.  Let go those priorities you maintain today, for whatever priority Jesus lead you to.  Let go those relationships today if they stand in your way.  Especially the one of fondness for who you are as you sit today.  In truth you are not “good enough” today.  You are nowhere near as “good” as you need to be.  But way beyond that, you are nowhere near as “good” as you will become if you let Jesus run the “who” you are, and “who” you are yet to be.  The “trying” just fades away and is replaced by actions you are unaware of, even if the world around you cannot believe them with their own eyes.

The goal is not to truly hate mom.  But the priority must ever be Jesus first.  If I allow my relationship with mom to get in the way of Jesus first, I do mom a disservice, I destroy myself, and I cripple the transformation of me, that Jesus so longs to create in me.  Ultimately, for what I think is love for mom, becomes my undoing and hers.  Case in point, our first forefather Adam.  Adam let his perfect love for Eve, become more important to him, than a perfect love for God.  In so doing, he was undone, Eve was undone, and his perfect love was immediately corrupted by a new “love” that was ever aware of self-interests.  When Jesus comes for his evening walk with Adam and Eve, they hid from Him.  They were aware of their nudity.  They were ashamed of what they had done.  And when Adam is questioned about this, he does not recite a noble love of sacrifice for his beloved.  Instead he blames Eve for “making” him eat, it was her fault, not his.  Where was all the love for Eve then?  Tossed right out the window, in an effort to keep God from killing him on the spot.  Even though that would never be the plan of Jesus.  It is no different with you or I today.  We allow ourselves to claim that family is more important than Jesus to us in a pinch when things are desperate, and in so doing, we undo ourselves, and family we claim to love.  Better to hate who we are, and keep Jesus first, to give Him the clay of our lives to start over with.

Jesus continues in verse 27 saying … “And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”  Yikes.  The analogy of serving Jesus compared to a torturous death that takes days to finally bring the end.  Not terribly appealing is it?  And here is where the rubber meets the road.  Who you are is not so willing to be transformed.  That love of self hangs on as if we would have to crucify it to get it out of here.  For days it struggles to find breath, maybe for years.  The carnal nature of 6000 years is deeply rooted in us, and is not inclined to go quietly.  Add to that the interest darker forces take in any person even glancing at Jesus to enact this kind of transformation and you get a perfect storm of self-love and self-interest trying desperately to avoid transformation and convince you that you just don’t need it.  And that is where most of Christianity just quits trying to let go, and settles in to a complacency about who they are, content to move this far and no farther.  But the cross is not an eternal torture device, it hurts more than anything, and then you die.  That is the hard part.  To truly be a disciple of Jesus, a follower of Jesus, the “who” we are today is destined to die.  No other way around it.  A hard truth, but a truth of hope beyond all imagining.

Jesus continues in verse 28 saying … “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? [verse 29] Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, [verse 30] Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.”  Here is Jesus Himself looking through the ages of time to a church of today, that is so content with itself.  We laid a foundation, we began through the faith of our forefathers, we rest on their accomplishments, and we move no farther.  And the devil, and the world, and our neighbors mock us saying that we have no real faith, for our lives look just like their lives, it is impossible to tell us apart, for we have no more love than they do, and we love all the same things.  We blend in so well, there is no distinction between a Christian and a non-Christian.  Worse, very often Christians are known for their condemnations and judgments of others.  Imagine that, what Jesus wanted was for the world to know us by our love.  And now they know us only by our judgment.  The church may be the greatest place for hate-speech the world has ever seen – not hate of sin, but hate of the sinners themselves.  For we offer them no plan of escape from lives burdened with pain of sin, just look at us, we have found no plan ourselves, how could we offer them one?  So we hate them instead of hating ourselves and who we have become.  The foundation was laid, but we have moved no farther.

Jesus continues in verse 31 saying … “Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? [verse 32] Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.”  We are at war today.  Not war with a physical enemy, or even war with a virus we do not see.  We are at war with ourselves, with who we are, and who Jesus longs to re-create us into, with whether we will allow Him to change us that way, or not.  But here is where hope begins to emerge once again.  Jesus tells us we are outnumbered.  Jesus tells us, it is time to find peace, to surrender and suffer no more.  On the other side of peace is a life waiting for you like no other.  On the other side of death to who you are today, is a new creation that has no limits.  The best life you can imagine is not enough to describe what Jesus first will create in you.  The conditions of this world cannot touch it.  And the conditions of the world to come, will be once again beyond all imagining.

Jesus concludes this section beginning in verse 33 saying … “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.  [verse 34] Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned? [verse 35] It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”  Letting it all go.  Leaving it all behind.  To seek Jesus first, God first.  To turn yourself over to Jesus entirely no matter the outcome, no matter who you will become, who He will make you into.  This is what it means to be a disciple, to be a follower of Jesus.  It may someday mean you are poor, perhaps dirt poor.  Not because you did not have money, but because you gave it all away without so much as a second thought or single regret.  You long only for the opportunity to give more.  It may someday mean, you are divorced, or isolated from your entire family for the strength of your love for Jesus.  But in that passion, your family may bear witness to who you have become, and your ever-present love for them, grounded in Jesus.  It may be that your entire family seeks the same Lord to find that kind of love for themselves.  And in being willing to let them go for the sake of Christ, that they are all brought to the feet of Christ and saved for themselves.  If Adam had been willing to let Eve go, and trust her to the love of Jesus, humanity would have had a very different fate, and Eve would still not have been lost forever.

But lest you think what the church is today, is enough, examine the analogy of salt losing its savor.  You can’t fix that.  You can’t make it better.  It becomes useless.  It becomes a church made of people who carry the name of Christ, but cling to everything in their lives but Jesus.  And in so doing, the world is not led to Jesus, but instead led away from Him.  The image of a condemning God is maintained by a people more prepared and willing to condemn others than to love them unconditionally.  A Jesus-first-church, is willing to let their entire lives go, and find themselves made into something else, something better.  A Jesus-first-church begins to think of the salvation of others, not by pointing out yet more attention to their sins, but by loving them first while they are yet in their sins, and then pointing them to Jesus for relief from the pain of their sins by the quiet example of their own lives.  No condemnation ever need be spoken, the world is not searching for yet another condemnation of itself.  But the world is desperately looking for a love that does not fail, and gives it reason to seek change, to seek a better way.  If we offer no better way in the example of our own lives and love, then we are salt that is no longer a seasoning of flavor, but just empty granules of nothing.

To let it all go sounds like sacrifice from this point of view.  But across the transformation horizon it is the deal of the century.  It is the letting go of our pain, for His joy.  It is the letting go of our self-inflicted stress and worry for His peace that nothing can touch.  It is the letting go of what we call love, for a pure love that comes from the throne of heaven itself and is reflected through you, without self-interest, but with only genuine care for another, for any other, whether sinner or saint.  And the un-healed cancer patient facing death can see this transformation in their own mind and hearts, and wind up living every moment from now to the grave in a state the world cannot ever know.  Each moment of life being made precious by a ministry for others, even though the disease never leaves, even if it kills them.  This world is but an introduction to a far better one.  And finding Jesus here is all that matters, it is all that makes life worth living, it is the meaning of life itself.  Letting it all go, means putting what matters most to you, in that hands of a loving Savior.  It means trusting God with your wife, your kids, your family, your job, and your money.  For it will only be as Jesus transforms you, that you may ever be able to reach those you love, to truly minister unto them.  And that is all that matters.  It begins, as you let it all go, but it has no end, ever better, ever more.

 

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?