if i could have anything i want, i would choose...

As a hidden blessing, our phone and TV weren't working yesterday, so I went outside and built a fire in the pit in our backyard. The wood was mostly wet due to a rain, but I soaked it with so much lighter fluid that once I lit it I had to go get the water hose do prevent a Santa Anna fire that would take out the entire subdivision. Once it got going there was no turning back. So I sat out there for a couple of hours staring into the flames and the red and orange coals that seemed to flash and dance and speak in codes not yet broken by the gods.

Second Chronicles is where I started reading as I found there was enough light provided by the fire to read. Solomon came to power after King David and God asked him one night what he wanted, promising to give him whatever he asked for. Wisdom and knowledge to lead was his reply. So YHWH gave it to him. In addition to that he gave him all the things he didn’t ask for; all the things that we spend our lives chasing after trying to attain: possessions, wealth, honor, the life of those who hate you, or long life for ourselves. (2 Chronicles 1)

All the things that we spend our lives chasing were the very things that Solomon didn’t ask for. I would have asked for them. I would have also asked for safety, security, happiness, and comfort.

And Solomon didn’t ask for them, but he ended up getting them, in fact more than any king ever had or ever will have. Later in Ecclesiastes he declared that all of these things he didn’t ask for (wealth, possessions, honor, etc) are pretty much not even worth having. In fact Solomon concludes that the only thing worth doing is worshiping and living for God alone. Most of those other things do a fairly good job of distracting us from the one thing necessary. But I still want them. I do.

Perhaps there is a connection here with Matthew 6.33 that says we should seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all those things will be provided as well. I wonder if the whole test is to be willing to abandon all these other things and the desire to have them and be willing to lose them in order to pursue Christ and focus on the one thing. In losing all the stuff, and pursuing the one thing, the stuff will be given. And once we get the stuff, we realize there is no life in the stuff.

Acts 2 is necessary, but is empty without Acts 3

“They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. “ Acts 2

Acts 2-3--with the fellowship of believers, with all the being together, the prayers, the breaking of bread, and the teaching, even with all of this in Acts 2, Acts 3 comes next. It has to. We cannot stop with the Acts 242 mindset, but need to realize that after the fellowship, there must be the going out into the hurting world. Acts 2 is necessary, but it is empty without Acts 3.

“One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, "Look at us!" So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.

Then Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. While the beggar held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon's Colonnade. “

It is indeed the secret: Christ in you, (Col. 1:27) the hope of all humanity is found in Jesus. The message of reconciliation has been entrusted to the church (the body of believers). (2 Cor. 5) And now through the power of the Holy Spirit we go and live and move among men, calling people to turn away from empty idols and believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we do all things through the power of Christ in us, and this power comes from God and not ourselves (1 Cor. 1 & 2). We give away only what we have first received from the Lord. All authority upon heaven and on earth has been given.

“All authority on heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go…” (Jesus) Matthew 28:18

Jesus doesn’t give us the authority, HE is the authority. And with his authority and him living in us, we have access to the power of the gospel and him working through us. And so we do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus.

And Peter and John told the beggar: “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!” For salvation is found in no one else, there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. So in this we do not save others in our own name, our ministry’s name, our churches denomination or name on the sign, or our 501(c) 3. The only boasting can be done in the name of Jesus. Only Jesus. The only one who deserves credit for salvation is Jesus.

“When Peter saw this, he said to them: "Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?” Acts 3.12

who is worthy of our attention? only Christ

“We know nothing of religion here: we think only of Christ.” (CS Lewis, The Great Divorce)

To think that all attention should revolved around a certain object: Christ and to know so. Yet to play around constantly in all kinds of other peripheral thinks is a shame. “And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, Christ. (Eph. 1:9-10) For I have resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. (1 Cor. 2:2)

A trick of the devil is to get us to talk about anything other than Jesus Christ; to focus our thought and life so that it gives worship and glory to anything other than Jesus Christ. To give worship to anything other than Christ is sin.

All creation will one day worship him. (Rev 5-6) “Then I saw a Lamb looking as if it had been slain standing in the center. Then I saw angels numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and elders and every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them proclaimed a new song and cried Behold the Lamb! Glory! Worthy is he to receive honor, glory, and power and to alone be worshiped. And they fell down and worshipped.”

Who is worthy?
God’s purposes of redemption and rule can be accomplished only through One who is uniquely worthy: Jesus Christ. He is simultaneously the fierce lion of the tribe of Judah, warring against God’s enemies and the gentle Lamb that was slain, purchasing his people with the blood of his atoning sacrifice.

Jesus Alone

Michelangelo would take raw blocks of stone and then he would sit and stare. Slowly, then, he’d begin to chip away, scratch, and chisel and hammer until what was there was what he sees in his imagination. He imagined and looked through the block. He didn’t see the block at all. Michelangelo had to find a way to what he saw in his mind, and to do so was to chisel away and chip off all that was not that.

The pope one time asked him how he did it, how he came up with such magnificent works of sculpture. For instance, how did he create the famous statue of David? Michelangelo replied, “Well, I chip away at everything that is not David.”

I want to do that with Jesus. I want to chip away at everything in my life that is not Jesus…until only Jesus is left and that is all I see. I want to purge all of the religion until only Jesus remains. Jesus alone is all we need.

Stay Away From Them

Growing up in church, I had always been surrounded by others like me, and was warned to stay away from trouble makers and wild people. So, in my insulated Christian culture, I didn’t find myself around non-believers enough to have the chance to get to know them much less talk to them about Jesus. As I got involved in Young Life as a volunteer leader, I found myself surrounded by people who I had always been warned to stay away from.

The more and more I read the Bible and read about Jesus, I wondered often where my well intentioned mentors got their information. Jesus seemed to hang around the very people I had always been warned not to go near. The crowd that Jesus was around were people who drank too much, girls who slept around, liars, cheaters, murderers, sick, the racially mixed, physically deformed, mentally broken, gamblers, to name a few. He loved them.

And I think his heart was also grieved at the religious leaders because of their judgment and false piety. But Jesus loves them too. He wanted the prodigal sons to come back home and become Christ-followers. It's always the older brother that has the hardest time dealing with grace. Jesus, additionally, wanted the religious leaders, the older brothers, to repent of the façade of righteousness they put forth and become Christ-followers. God wants all men, Christian and non-Christian, to become Christ-followers.

The first time I walked into a Young Life club, I was astounded by the make-up of the crowd. There were about 120 high school kids packed into a room on the floor listening to a guy talk about Jesus. What baffled me is that I couldn’t understand how they got these kids to come, much less pay attention to what was being said. Simply put, these kids did not seem to be the kind of kids who should be in that room. It looked anything but “Christian.”

John, the Area Director, actually had to break up a fight between a South Forsyth and a Central Forsyth football player. Language echoing around was foul. A few kids were smoking cigarettes. In my Phariseeism, I asked him about these things. He said that this is not a Christian group rather it is an organization led by Christians. It is led by Christians who want these non-Christians to hear about Jesus. “Non-Christians,” he went on to say, “will act like non-Christians because that is who they are.” I guess he is right, you can’t expect a person who isn’t a Christian to act like they are.

Young Life eventually was asked to find another place to meet and was kicked out of the house by the church that owned it and had its main building next door. They were appalled at the kind of kids who were there and how they were acting. They said that they couldn’t allow that kind of behavior happening on the church property. It is interesting, and sad, that the very people that they claimed to want to reach and love had shown up on their property, right under their noses, and they decided they wanted nothing to do with them. “We don’t want those kinds of people around here. This is not the image we want to portray.” As if to say, “We work really hard to protect ourselves from those kinds of people.”

Ministry is Messy

What we do in Young Life is messy. There is no way to do what we do and remain clean and comfortable. It is hard, too hard for human effort and self-reliance. The further and further you dive into the adolescent culture the more screwed up you find it. On the surface is a beautifully crafted work but underneath it all is piles of rubble. In our mission to reach kids, we find ourselves walking right into the mess to help kids find their way. In the process we get a little beat up and heartbroken as well. I deeply feel that to be in ministry, true ministry, there is no way to avoid getting messy.

I sat in a room with a high school guy and three of his friends as he came to grips with the fact that his mom had committed suicide just a few hours earlier. Sitting there in the silence, I can remember thinking that I would rather be anywhere but here. My college degree had trained me to balance financial statements not try to explain why parents inhale carbon monoxide. Nothing could be said, verbally at least, but what I could say I did so with my presence, I didn’t know what else to do. I just sat there with my arm around him as he slipped in and out of reality walking outside every few minutes while he smoked a cigarette. It was then that I decided that a silent presence and being with those we minister to is often louder than anything we can say. Christianity can be so wordy these days. Too much talk. You go to Bible Study to hear someone talk. We go to church every Sunday to hear someone talk. There is too much talking in Christianity and not enough listening; not enough simple acts of presence.

“Now Job’s three friends heard of all this trouble that had come upon him, they came each from his own place. They met together to go and show him sympathy and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.” (Job 2:11-13)

In Young Life, we get messy. Someone once said that Young Life leaders go to the very gates of hell and sort of simply hang around hoping for the chance to grab a kid and pull them out. In that waiting around, our very hearts get singed from the fire. Our clothes and skin are blackened. We are deeply and physically affected by what we do because we are often so close to the pain and brokenness.

I find myself many times trying to explain what we do in Young Life and too often the recipients of my explanation simply glaze over because it sounds so foreign.

“You mean you simply hang out with kids?” They say.

“Yep. Practices, games, lunches, go eat breakfast, throw the football, play basketball. Yeah, that’s what we do.”

They grin because they don’t know what to say. It is mostly foreign.

“That’s nice, but what do you all do?”

“I just told you. We hang out with kids. A lot.”

“OK.”

And they walk away confused at the method and implying with their body language that they feel like it is a waste of time, as if to say that the real action is in the huge programs where the crowds show up. It is more glamorous. People, supporters, and donors like to hear about big programs with big numbers. It is more tangible.

Some people will not understand and simply not get it. But some people do get it and when they do, their hearts light up and they roll up their sleeves and say “Count me in, I am ready to get messy.”

In YL, the reality is that we have to be willing to let the things that break God’s heart break our own hearts and we have to be willing to walk close enough to the fire to feel the heat; or even get burned. Very often, the companion of what we do with kids is painful because we are all too often so close to the brokenness of those we minister to. It is impossible to not be affected by what we encounter. It can be bluntly painful. I have, as well as other leaders on our team, received phone calls in all hours of the night that I would have rather not answered, or I wish I was dreaming, but I wasn’t. It was very real; too real.