Purpose

The goal and purpose of salvation is to allow us access and authority to partner with the Father to help bring Jesus’ kingdom to earth. We’re not going to heaven, heaven is coming to earth.

The kingdom comes first in our hearts. Sounds elementary, but as a people who are suppose to represent Jesus, the kingdom is not in our hearts. If it was, we would be doing what Jesus did. Jesus did what He did by fellowship with the Father. He spent more time in prayer, fasting, fellowship, and aligning his heart with the Father than He did in actual ministry. Ministry was not a goal but a result of a heart condition.

Jesus also didn’t agree with the teachings of the day. In fact it was 100% opposite. But He didn’t establish a synagogue or start his own church because of His own disagreement. In fact, He continued to attend the very place He didn’t agree with. Did He cause dissention and division? Nope. Did He try and convince the leadership that He was right and they were wrong in their endeavors? Nope.

His simply brought the reality of heaven to earth. Wherever He went, His goal was to create a space where the laws of sin were interrupted and overruled by a higher law of love and selflessness. His demonstration was through the healing of the sick, raising of the dead, blessing of the children, and provision of needs. The physical demonstration was confirmed by the emotional, spiritual, and mental revelation of what heaven on earth meant, looked like, and felt like. (Who is this man who speaks with such authority and causes our hearts to burn within us?).

His purpose wasn’t to develop a particular following or gather as many people as possible. Although the following happened, that was the result, not the purpose. Jesus didn’t attempt to convert or persuade anyone that His was way the right way. He didn’t try and convince, convict, or cajole his audience to the idea that they were sinners and needed “salvation”. He simply demonstrated the reality of heaven. When He presented heaven, heaven heard, and heaven answered.

Until we are dissatisfied with our current ineffectiveness, we will never truly be happy in our heart or effective with our lives. It is not our words, but our actions, and the result of those actions, which will convince those of the true reality of eternity. Your purpose-my purpose is much bigger and deeper than garnering a larger following, releasing the next top selling worship CD, writing the latest book, or preaching the most relevant sermon series. Those are good and noble and right, but they should be results, not goals. Our birthright is to take back the fellowship that was lost in the garden and we’ve been given authority to once again release the purpose and dominion of Jesus back to the earth. Our destiny is to daily demonstrate this ultimate expression of love and open the goodness of heaven over everyone who enters our space.

Humility-After Thoughts

I was thinking all day yesterday about what I posted. As I was talking to a friend at work about it, I felt like God impressed me with this:

"Don't rob people of their opportunity to be humble. Your motivation to defend people is really in a way for you to respond to how you would have liked to respond when you were in the same situation. This does two things. First, it justifies your actions to wrong someone and reveals the current state of your heart. Second, you rob people of their chance to be humble because if they aren't allowed to do what you won't do, it relieves some of your own guilt."

While I had to agree with what I was being told, I thought "but what about the people I care about? Sure my motivation isn’t always pure, but sometimes I really do want to defend those that I love and care about like my parents, brothers, and family."

I was once again reminded that the Father stood by while his Son was lied about, manipulated, abused, and killed.

While that's all very heavy, don't let it be. It's not meant to be that way. This latest side road of humbleness is a very gentle one. I challenge you to have a conversation with God about this and see how He responds. A humble God will not respond with over lording and anger of what is or isn't being done. It's His kindness that leads us to repentance.

The virtue of humbleness takes great effort and energy to maintain and requires a denial of self that people rarely understand or want to sacrifice. God isn't asking everyone around you to be humble. He's asking you to be humble. Your humbleness isn't contingent on other people's reactions. When people see that you are a servant in every situation, they are going to abuse you and use you, but that is part of the deal when you choose to walk this path. It will happen. Over and over again.

In light of Jesus can we do anything less? When we choose to wear the cloak of servants, we begin to understand what it means to live and have our being in Him. Not that we depend on Him for everything, but that we do not depend on anyone else for anything. The reward is a happiness and joy that is beyond compare.

Humility

The “it” is quite simply humility, servant hood, and meekness. The western church has rationalized and reasoned humility away. I was raised with the “you’re not a door mat, speak your opinion” mentality. So I’ve lived it-to my own detriment and strife.

The scripture and the life of Jesus gives a very different picture. Jesus said it was His joy to lay down His life. It was His pleasure to give up His eternity to forever be clothed in flesh. It was His honor to stand before those that accused Him in silence.

The story of the money changers is always used to defend our actions. The temple incident was a matter of defending the honor of the Father-not Jesus himself. Jesus was also moved by Holy Spirit. Most of the time we are moved by pride and self preservation which is a fleshly response. The question to ourselves is who are we defending? What are our motives? We lie and tell ourselves they are noble, but the truth is they are not.

The question always asked is “How far do I let people go? How far do I let them abuse me? God didn’t make us to be other people’s slaves!”

Really? Because Jesus said He was a slave of all. He said “I come to you as a bond servant.” He also said those who weren’t willing to drink His cup have no place with Him with His Father. I’m also sure the Father didn’t intend to watch His son be abused, lied about, and killed, but He stood by and allowed that to happen, knowing that the resulting glory was of far greater worth than the immediate pain.

That brings us to the current state of affairs and the lack of God in our lives and churches. People in and out of the church are done. They’re done with life and they’re done with us and our smiles and relevant sermons and ideals. We don’t need another sermon, program, series, idea, or plan. We don’t need another scheme or manipulation to get people to what we call church. We don’t need to try and be relevant and meaningful. WE NEED JESUS. In a real way. I don’t think we understand that. WE NEED JESUS.

God is omnipresent, but His manifest glory isn’t. His glory is His goodness and His goodness is His glory. It’s the glory that changes us. Scripture says that “the kindness of the Lord leads men to repentance”.

The simple principle of the kingdom is God honors humility. God honors those that are willing to be servants of all. But no one wants to do that. I don’t want to and you don’t want to. If we did and if we were doing it, God would show up and there would be so many people in our churches we wouldn’t know what to do. We wouldn’t need to market or mail or witness people into the pews or seats.

There’s no eternal, everlasting heat change because there’s no glory. There’s no glory because there’s no humility, and there’s no humility because of unforgivness. We think that people owe us something, that we don’t deserve to be treated “that way”. Why do we think that? Because we’re a child of God we should be treated with respect? Really? Jesus was the real son of God and He received nothing but grief, strife, and death. We’re just the adopted bunch and we think we deserve better?

So really what we’re saying is that we’re better than Jesus and deserve to be treated better than He was.

So what about forgiveness? As a servant and slave, forgiveness is a requirement. Forgiveness without remembrance or retribution.

A quote from Henri Nouwen sums it up well:

“Forgiveness means I continually am willing to forgive the other person for not being God-for not fulfilling all my needs. When you forgive people for not being God, you can celebrate that they are a reflection of God. You can say ‘since you are not God, I love you because you have such beautiful gifts of God’s love. You don’t have everything of God, but what you do have to offer is worth celebrating.’ By celebrating I mean lift up, affirm, confirm, to rejoice in another’s gifts. You can say you are a reflection of that ultimate love.”

Light

While I don't endorse most of her ideals and thoughts, I think this quote fromm Marianne Williamson is worth repeating.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” - Marianne Williamson

With knowledge comes responsibility, and with responsibility comes accountibility. Accountability brings discomfort and adversity. With adversity comes the unknown, and with the unknown, fear. Fear brings sloth, and sloth eventually leads to destruction. Let us endeavor to stand strong and unapologetic to our calling, but carry our authority with love, meekness, and a gentle heart.