Drunken Mystic

“But he who endures to the end shall be saved.”

The very nature of discipleship is change.  And change is difficult.  And when things get difficult, people want to quit.

The Gospels and the New Testament constantly deal with this.  In Jesus’ parable of the soils, the good soil that ended up living to produce fruit is contrasted with those that quit after hard times and those who left the path of life to follow the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth.  The man who built his house on the rock and the one who built it on the sand both had to go through the storm.  Only the one who heard and obeyed had the foundation to make it through the storm.

As I mentioned before, the writer of Hebrews contrasts the Israelites who turned back because of their unbelief with those that believe in Jesus and will not “shrink back.”

There was an old song that we used to sing at the altar call back when we used to have those things, and it went like this: “I have decided to follow Jesus.  No turning back.  No turning back.”

With all the encouragements through the New Testament to have hope and look forward and not give up, seems safe to assume that at some point we will all really want to give up on following Jesus with all our heart.

It’s not that difficult to follow Jesus for a while.  In fact, depending on your personality, you even look really cool and on fire for a time.  But then it gets really difficult, and God begins to put you through some really hard things.  Or maybe you just get tired.

Did you know the Bible says, “Do not weary of doing good?”  Probably means you will.

There are some general things that happen to people that make them want to give up on being a real disciple.  Maybe just being tired of carrying another cross, or being given one you really don’t want, or the wealth of this life becomes too tempting, or persecution causes too much fear, or there are too many self-proclaimed Christians that are hypocrites, or there is a doctrine or truth about God that deeply offends a cultural idea or philosophy.

Whether it is one or two or all of these, they are more common than you think for a reason, and they can be dealt with, but they must be dealt with in endurance and faith.  Giving up effectively aborts the whole discipleship process.

There are some things that God delivers you from.  Other things you must endure to produce deep Christ-like character.  Christ “learned to obey through the things He suffered.”  If you are to be truly like Him, so will you.

But ultimately the idea is that there is no turning back.  Read the Old Testament and see what happened whenever Israel tried to go back to Egypt.  God would kill them before He let that happen.  Once you’re in, going back is taking your life back into your own hands.

After Jesus died and rose again and all that, you know what Peter did?  He went back to fishing.  He and his buds went back to Galilee and just started fishing, getting on with their life again after a three and a half year “missions trip.”

But then Jesus shows up, the one who called Peter, gave him a new name and everything, and made Peter a “fisher of men”, and Jesus was sitting on the beach.

Jesus asks Peter, “You got any food?”  Peter says, “No.”  Jesus says, “Put your net on the right side and you’ll get some.”

Of course they did, got more fish than they could carry, and they figured out it was Jesus.  Peter jumps in the water and goes to the beach, the rest of them dragging all the fish behind them.

What was Jesus doing while on the beach?  Cooking breakfast, fish and bread that He had provided for them.  And then Jesus invited them to breakfast.

Then after feeding them, Jesus then gives Peter a command … well, three actually.  “Feed My lambs.  Tend My sheep.  Feed my sheep.”

Do we see what’s going on here?  Peter goes back to work for himself, and Jesus provides for everyone and then says, “Peter.  I gave you a job.  You’re responsible for my sheep.”

When Peter put down his nets to follow Jesus, was told he was now a “fisher of men”, was given the keys to the kingdom, all that was a permanent change.  Peter wasn’t allowed to go back to who he was before.  The three years of ministry with Jesus wasn’t a nice little adventure.  He was called to seek first the Kingdom of God, now and for the rest of his life.

There’s no retirement in the Kingdom of God.  Following Jesus with all of your heart isn’t just until you get married and settle down and have some kids and a nice house or get a little older and let the younguns take over.  It is for life.

There is plenty of teaching out there that calls seeking a nice suburban lifestyle Christianity.  But it isn’t. It isn’t really seeking first the Kingdom of God.  And if we’re honest we’ll admit that is true.

And as I close this series down, there are two things to remember.  There is a difference between being someone who just believes a few nice doctrines and people who are true disciples of Christ.  A disciple of Christ is a radical change that challenges every culture and philosophy and way of life.  It is its own way of life and its own culture.  Discipleship will have its own testimony and fruit.

And this is for life.  You don’t just live like a disciple for a while and then get to live for yourself later on, like you’ve earned a vacation or retirement.

You’re learning to be like Jesus.  You are being raised up to take over your Father’s business for eternity.  The end of your training happens when you pass from this life to the next.

And don’t quit.  Whatever you do, don’t quit.  It might feel easier, the grass might be greener, but believe me it is not.  Just stick it out through the valley of death.  There are green pastures on the other side.

And if you need rest, don’t rest in the things of this world.  Find your rest in Jesus and His people.

Peace.

Yes, this does go to eleven.  Actually, twelve, so we’re almost done.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, as I have loved you.  By this will all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

A defining characteristic of a disciple of Christ is that he will love other disciples as Christ loved him.

Pretty simple, but let me further expound a little.

There are some interesting implications in this, the first of which is that this is a determination the world will make about followers of Christ.  Looking at the Church today, the world could make several distinctions about us, but few would be able to say, as was said about the early church, “behold how they love one another.”  But if we want people to believe that we belong to Jesus, it has way less to do with a doctrinal statement, the name on the door, or a political affiliation as it does the love we have for one another.

And this leads us to the second implication, which is that no disciple can prove he is such by himself.  In other words, you can say you are a follower of Christ all day long, but if your life doesn’t testify to a loving, committed relationship to other disciples, you’re wasting your breath.

There is much of the Christian life that is individual.  But our modern society has so individualized religion that it has become an idol.  Yes, an idol.  We have raised up a standard of our own individualism to the detriment of the testimony of what really following Jesus is all about.

I once visited a church where a friend of mine was teaching Sunday School (he wanted me to come to his class, so he kinda asked for it).  The gist of his teaching in the class was that Christianity was an individual sport, like boxing or tennis.  I looked at him and said, “Then what are we doing here?”  The irony of the situation made everyone quiet enough that allowed me to launch into scriptures that obviously speak of a very different life.  And that was almost twenty years ago now.

In the interim, I’ve become even more convinced that the Bible testifies of a life more interdependent in fellowship with other disciples than independent and individual.  You may come to it as an individual, but you become a part of a new family where your individualism only goes so far.

A true disciple will commit his life to a local body of believers deeper than even his physical family could express.  This doesn’t mean you form cliques and fully isolate yourself from others, but then again at times you will.  Because it is good and  right to do so.

I am married and have three kids.  Sometimes we just do things as a family.  Sure I have extended family, to varying degrees of intimacy, but the living of day in and day out goes on with these individuals.

It is the same with the Church.  Yes, there is a universal reality to the Church that is biblical and no one could or should deny.  I have brothers and sisters in Christ all over the world, and I thank God for things like Facebook and email and ways that I can stay in contact and some amount of fellowship with them.  At the same time, there is a clear testimony from scripture that there were individual churches, plural, and to deny the reality therein is to deny the responsibility of a local spiritual family that God has called us to commit our hearts and lives within.  Just as my primary physical and earthly responsibility is to my physical family, Becca and Micah and Elisha and Hosanna, my primary spiritual responsibility is to those who have decided to join and commit their spiritual journey to my own so we can take care of one another and grow deeper in relationship.

It is within this local body of believers first, and the Church at large in the world second, that we are meant to fulfill “love one another as I have loved you.”

Jesus spent an inordinate amount of time with these men, his twelve, over the three and a half years of his earthly ministry.  They lived life together, even to the point where the disciples said, “Well, let’s go die with Him.”

Their attachment to Jesus was such that Peter said, “Where can we go?  You have the words of life.”

The Word was made flesh then in Christ and is now made flesh in His Church by His Spirit.  There are some things of God you can only get from an intimate relationship with the Body of Christ because that is how God has designed it.  Without it, at the very least, you’re missing out on a major expression and truth of the kingdom of God.  At worst you might not be a disciple at all.

But my point here is that there is life in the Body of Christ.  There is a revelation of Christ that happens only when the saints of God gather together unto Him and one another.

“Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!  It is like the precious oil upon the head, running down the beard of Aaron, running down the edge of his garments.  It is like the dew of Hermon, descending upon the mountains of Zion; for there the Lord commanded blessing – life forevermore.”

For there – where brethren dwell in unity – the Lord has commanded blessing – LIFE FOREVERMORE.

Peace.

I was busy last week, so here we come to the next installment a little late … but seeing as how there were like four parts to the last one, probably good to take a break.

One of the aspects of discipleship as exemplified by Jesus was that He never accepted any excuse for disobedience or not following Him.

Now, some of these scriptures we can take with a certain grain of salt, because there were people who were ready to leave everything and follow Jesus, and Jesus told them to stay in their town (notably the demoniac, who obeyed).  In other words, not necessarily a formula of what exactly to do, but the principle of immediate obedience and willingness to do whatever He asks WITHOUT EXCUSE is consistent.

Jesus was the most compassionate man ever to walk this earth, and yet we routinely see Him acting in such a way that we would today interpret as completely insensitive.

The apostles and other writers of the gospels felt it was necessary to include testimony of people who came to Jesus with excuses and then to show how Jesus dealt with those excuses.

The common story repeated in the gospels about Jesus I’ll take from Luke 9:  Then He said to another, “Follow Me.”  But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”  Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.”

And another said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.”

But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

First of all, if someone came to me, whose father had just died, and they needed some time to grieve and bury him, I would guess I would say, “Sure, absolutely, take all the time in the world.”

But not Jesus.  Jesus said, “Someone else will take care of that stuff, people who are dead already.  You focus on preaching the kingdom of God.”

What a jerk!  No allowance for grief or how the guy feels or the “necessities” of life.  And those people who actually take care of those details, He calls them dead.  We can assume all we want as to why Jesus felt the need to be so harsh, but they are assumptions at best.

We are given Jesus’ motivation in clear enough language.  We just don’t like it.

Jesus clearly was more interested in the preaching of the kingdom, the complete and immediate answering of that call, than grief or the seemingly important details of life.

Next we have someone whose “heart” is to follow God, but needs to do something first.

Again we get Jesus the jerk.  “You can’t look back and follow Me.  You’re not fit for the kingdom if you do that.”

Someone really needed to sit Jesus down and explain to Him that you can’t earn salvation or it’s not about works and that as long as they want to “in their heart”, that’s good enough.  Maybe His problem was He only read that mean Old Testament with all those rules and the mean God we don’t really believe in anymore.

Or maybe, just maybe, if Jesus continually questioned whether people were “worthy” or “fit” for the kingdom, and His disciples felt the need to repeat those teachings in the gospels, we should be careful not to explain away the words of Jesus, no matter how harsh the language, no matter how uncomfortable to our modern theology it can get.

Maybe, just maybe, Jesus knew what salvation was really about more than we do.

All this guy was going to do was go back home and say goodbye to some people he loved before he followed Jesus.

Jesus essentially says, “Forget following Me AFTER.  Follow Me NOW.  Or you won’t follow Me at all.”

The gospels make the point that certain disciples immediately followed Jesus.  Yes, some of them were first disciples of John the Baptist or had probably heard Jesus’ teaching before being called, but the principle is important.  Once the call was clearly made, the response was immediate.  They put down their nets, left everything, and followed.

How does this balance out with “counting the cost”?  All I can say is that there is a place where you count the cost, and that is good, but there is also an expectation by God that His revelation is immediately responded to.  You cannot excuse disobedience with, “I was counting the cost.”  You still disobeyed a clear call.  God doesn’t make those calls lightly.

Also, you can count the cost while following, and likely will.  Who really knows all that they are getting themselves into when they make any decision?  There’s only so much “counting the cost” you can do before you just have to make a decision.  Whether a marriage or job or something else, you go through several moments along the way where you have to count the cost.

Getting back to the point, though, once we hear the Lord, there is no excuse for disobedience or not following completely.  None.  The revelation of God is the most precious thing in existence.  Treat it as such.

I hear lots of excuses for why people can’t really follow Jesus.  Everything to career choices to “my personality” to lifestyle decisions either cause people to reject God completely … or come up with some new doctrine to justify why they can tell God to chill while doing what they want or feel they need to be happy.  Of course the latter is just rejecting God, as well.

I believe that the early Church dealt with all this, too, hence why they included very clear stories and testimony and teaching from Jesus about the cost of discipleship and the complete absence of excuse, then wrote them down.

So we could explain them away two thousand years later?  I don’t believe so.

Peace.

As we finish the discussion of “forsaking it all,” I want to quickly look at the New Testament testimonies of how this was lived out. 

It is clear that the disciples still owned stuff.  Some had jobs.  Peter had a home and a wife.

Although many of the Jerusalem church left everything (traveling from around the empire for Pentecost and staying there to be with the newborn church), others obviously kept the houses they lived in and shared with others.  So while some didn’t technically “sell all they had”, they didn’t regard any possession as singularly their own (by choice and not obligation).  In some ways, sharing your stuff is more difficult than just giving it away.

Zaccheas repents by giving half of his goods to the poor and restored fourfold what he stole as a tax collector.  Not sure how that added up as a total percentage of his stuff, but sounds like a lot.

Paul testifies to being in need and in abundance at different times, and although he does not specify when those seasons were, I do find it interesting Paul used his great need and distresses as evidnece of his apostleship.

Jesus told His disciples to take nothing with them when He sent them to spread the Kingdom two by two.  They would have what they needed when they arrived.

Jesus Himself had “no place to lay His head” but was also the guest at feasts and had what He needed when He needed it (like at the Passover).  Regarding His earthly family, while Jesus distanced Himself from them in one sense, He still felt responsible for His mother while still on the cross.

Cornelius, the first Gentile to receive the Holy Spirit, was seen as righteous because of his great generosity to the poor and the synagogue. 

All these are just examples to show that the idea of “forsaking it all” isn’t a cookie-cutter idea – God never really works that way – but that there is an expectation your life will exhibit the type of change that is revolutionary and will include a real expression of how your life is focused on a whole other Kingdom.

For those that hear “there’s no formula” as justification for why you can’t get rid of your stuff or how you get to accumulate more, I can only say that’s not the point and using “grace for license to sin” and disobey a direct command of ANY who would follow Him.

You do not own stuff.  Stuff owns you.  It takse resources like your time and entergy to maintain your stuff.  The more stuff you have, the more you must do to protect and keep it.  You are bound to what you own.

As a personal testimony, my wife and I were led by God to serve in an international school overseas.  We were limited in what we could bring with us, so we got rid of a lot of stuff.  Sold it or gave most of it away, and stored more than we should have in my parent’s basement.

We lived in Korea with less money and stuff, but we never felt more free to just live for God.  And we actually gave more money away than we had before when our incomes were greater.

And once free, I determined to not go back.  I came back to America, but I determined to not return to “the  cares of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth” which choked out life, killing the plant, in Jesus’ parable of the soils.

But it is difficult to stay in that place.  People are fine with you being a missionary and living like that in another country, for the most part, and you might even emotionally inspire some, but to live the same way right under their noses challenges their ideas of success and normal how they’ve lived their life, making it much more personal and practical.  It makes many people really uncomfortable.

Which is not the reason to do it and not my personal goal, but I can implore you – give up your stuff.  Be free to follow God and bear fruit.  You’ll have more joy and see more of the true Kingdom than ever before.

Peace.

“Sell all you have and give it to the poor.”

So why the poor?  Now that we’ve established the requirement of forsaking it all, why is this connected with giving to the poor?

First, just as Christ did not just simply give His life away, but gave His life so that others in spiritual need could share in His spiritual riches, the goal is not just to lose but to give with recognition of others in need.

Staying with this symbolism, just as we were not able to earn such compassion, the poor don’t have to prove themselves worthy of ours.

Second, it is a recognition of a future state.  As we see in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus and the beatitudes as listed in Luke 6, Jesus taught that those with less now will have more later.  And I’m pretty sure He would know.  Also, the poor church of Smyrna in Revelation was told they had great riches and recieved no rebuke from Jesus (Philiadelphia was the other church of the seven to recieve no rebuke).

The sheep and the goats were divided based upon their actual treatment of the poor and others who could not give back (the dude in prison cannot visit you back), and a reward awaited them in heaven because Jesus so identified with those in need.

While there is a statement in the Old Testament about poverty being a curse, Jesus and the other writers of the New Testament seem to feel differently.  Jesus called the poor blessed with heavenly riches later, and James says they are rich in faith now.

So why wouldn’t you want to be poor?

This isn’t a denial of the hardship or suffering of poverty.  Quite the opposite.  It is a recognition that with faith, hardship produces an eternal weight of glory.

However, this also does not excuse the poor from giving.  The poor widow gave all she had and more than the wealthy man.  We see a poor church blessed by Paul because they gave out of their need.

In contrast, the rich are constantly given woes and dire warnings throughout the whole New Testament, like being fattened up for the slaughter.

Still want God to make you rich?

The New Testament never promises an earthly Utopia where we rid the world of poverty and oppression.  These acts are done in faith due to a revelation of a completely different reality, a spiritual kingdom that transcends and infiltrates earthly nations, both as a testimony now and fully realized at a later time.

okay … one more left …

Peace.

The first thing in this post I want to tackle is the idea of “inalienable rights.”

Despite what modern liberal progressives will tell you, the founding fathers of America studied the Bible extensively for principles of self-government.  That’s because the earliest system of government based on ideas of equality of man and republican democracy was not Greece or Rome but Israel.

These men were at the very least Deists and felt strong conviction of a single creator.  And if that Creator designed the immaculate way in which our world works ecologically and biologically, then He must also have ideas about proper government and we would be fools to ignore it.

And if God instituted a government based on certain rights of self-government and equality, then God also gave those rights to man.  And if God instituted rights, then they could not be taken away.  Those rights were inherent to man, like his DNA – “inalienable.”

Among the rights they found in the Law of Israel was the right of life and property.

My point here is that you have a biblical right to live and a right to your stuff.  It is your right to choose to do with it what you will.  The plea to give up your stuff and your life is not a denial of those rights, but rather evidence those rights exist.

Even in Acts, during a time when the whole church in Jerusalem seemed to be giving up their stuff, Ananias and Sapphira were told by Peter, before God struck them dead, “It was your property to do with what you will.”

Paul, in 1 Corinthians, pleads with that fellowship to be compassionate in financial giving, but he also makes it clear that it should never be by obligation.  It should be with a willing heart.

All of this establishes that no one can take what is yours by right.  Take this with a grain of salt because you will ultimately lose both your life and your stuff, usually simultaneously, but while in this life you must still give it willingly.  And yes, oppression exists, but oppression is evil for the very fact that the rights of self-government and private property are from God Himself.

Jesus never forced anyone to give up anything.  He only declared the spiritual reality and allowed for people to choose eternal destruction or eternal life.

These are rights and privileges that must be given up in this life to have the life and authority of Christ both now and for eternity.

In America, we love to defend our rights.  Anytime we want something or feel something is unfair, we claim it as a right.

It is honorable and good for a worldly government to recognize and protect certain rights.  But it is truly Christ-like to lay them down.

“Let this mind be in you” – the mind that recognizes certain rights from God – i.e. life and property – and renounces them for a  greater reward – the rights and priveleges of being a child of the King.

Jesus didn’t fight for the rights of this life but continually expressed the authority and freedom of a heavenly kingdom.  If we give up our citizenship here, then we are free to be citizens of heaven.

As we see in Paul’s testimony in Philipians 3, Paul even counted his Jewish heritage as lost.  In the context of discussing “no confidence in the flesh”, Paul lists the things he could take confidence in as a Jew – even concerning righteousness which is in the law, “blameless.”  And he counts it all as rubbish “that I might gain Christ.”

“That I might gain Christ.”

Jesus died on the cross to show us the way to life.  And we must identify with that act in order to be like Him.

Galatians 3: I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now life in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

1 Tim 2: Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with Him, we will also live with Him.

Colossians 3: For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

While it may seem morbid, God wants you dead so He can give you life.  Your previous life is over.  A dead man doesn’t need to bother himself with the things of this life.  That dude in his grave probably isn’t worrying about leaving the iron on … and if he is, he can’t do anything about it now.

We must die, be crucified with Christ, so we can be dead to sin.  This identification with Christ in His death is a constant struggle because while the flesh may be dead, our brain doesn’t know it yet.

I call it the phantom limb syndrome.  You know, there’s this guy who loses his right leg in a war.  But it wakes him up at night with aches and pains and it itches him.  He swears he feels pain in his right pinky toe.

But he has no right pinky toe.  His whole leg no longer exists.

Our brains are so used to living by the flesh, it is difficult to convince our mind that the flesh is dead.  Hence the importance of renewing our minds and not conforming ourselves to the ideas of this world.  “If you have died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourself to regulations-” Colossians 2.

“Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Romans 6.

A disciple changes his thinking, considering himself dead to sin, and “how shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?”

In Colossians 3, Paul goes into more detail, explaining that we are to put off the “old man”, the dead one, and put on the new.  And he makes it clear that this actually means changing our behavior.

However, too often we hang on to our life, our dreams, our desires, our concerns, our careers, our rights and priveleges, our comforts.  God wants us to be about the Kingdom above all else, to the literal exclusion of all else, not only when we can fit it into our schedule.

He wants His house to be a house of prayer, for our zeal for Him to consume us.  That necessitates being dead to this world and the things in it.

Before I move on, I at least want to mention the fact that some are killed and executed for the faith.  I don’t want to minimize at all the reality of truly suffering for Jesus.  All of the first apostles except for John were killed for Jesus.  The early church honored martyrs as great men and women of faith.  There are still martyrs all over the world suffering and dying for the Name as we speak.  True discipleship makes you a target, even if they don’t kill you - if they hated Jesus and tried to kill Him, how will they treat you?  “No servant is greater than His Master.”  That is part of the cost you must count.

8(c) next …

Peace.