Moving Though Less Groving...

My wife has it down.

In fact, many of the boxes we're using are labeled from the last move only a year and a half ago. Up to this point she has done 95% of the packing. Late nights after long days. My schedule in this season is particularly brutal. Long days on top of short nights. I've not been much help.

We're moving for the sixth time in our six years of marriage. Once upon a time moving was full of excitement about the future and the new and the wonder of things to come. Now we pack up, unpack, set up, tear down, pack up and so on. With two kids. And more stuff.

Moving is exhausting: mentally, emotionally, physically and because of this we become spiritually tested and tempted and tired. Simply exhausted.

There's something deeply spiritual about moving. It's symbolic of the Christian life - on the one hand we're partaking already in the eternal kingdom...yet on the other hand we haven't experienced it in full.

The Israelites sought out the promised land and while they never fully moved into the entirety of that land it was only a temporary gathering place for His people anyhow.

Paul calls our bodies tents. Temporary structures awaiting an eternal home.

Jesus didn't claim a home here either. His home was in heaven and while on earth he travelled and moved.

My family is moving. We aren't going home. We're resettling temporarily in order live in our world more effectively. Though it's stressful and exhausting at times moving has been a healthy reminder of what's worth clinging to: Christ/comfort. His Kingdom/my kingdom. Mine is incredibly fleeting and nomadic. His is eternal and static.

'I saw the Holy City...coming down out of heaven from God...Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.' Revelation 21:1-4)

We are moving...though not to the perfect domain. While the Kingdom of Heaven is a here and now/then and there reality...I'm really looking forward to the then and there. No more boxes.

Easy as Love...

What an absolutely awesome topic...

Most of hold an incomplete view of love. We think of marriage or butterflies in the stomach. We think of passion and sex. Parenting and obedience. We think of long suffering or settling. We think of perversions and abuses, pains and heartaches. Some of even think of the Cross.

We tend to think of love as something that strikes our souls out of thin air. Or that it's easy and bubbly and always happy and always there when it's true.

Love is mixed in with all of these things but it is not fully any of them and some of them not at all. True Love has marital, sexual, parental, relational, mental, emotional, physical, verbal, spiritual boundaries that define it as love. Without a definition love is...confused at best.

Love is actually quite simple. That doesn't mean it's easy and it doesn't mean we won't have to meditate and pray and practice and search the infinite number of examples and imperatives to love in the Scriptures on a regular basis.

Two ancient but absolutely original thoughts:

1) 'This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for others.' 1 John 3:16

2) 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind...Love your neighbor as yourself.' Matthew 22:37-40

When you have the choice to love another in place of hating or even disliking them...choose love. Mentally think of them as equals in His creation. Emotionally control your initial reactions. Physically serve them. Spiritually mirror the attitude of Christ who did the same to you.

There are universal experiences of love and perversions of it. It is very real, and very intentionally shaped by YHVH. Love.

The Static Bearer: Electrifyingly Connected

When did you lose that electrified connection between what you know to be true spiritually and what is physically being lived out in your life?

Like at one point after being made aware of your true human nature, and a transformed life in light of Christ's holiness, you desperately wanted to align yourself with His righteousness, His standard of living, His gracious love...no matter the personal cost.

'Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you,' Peter said to Jesus. All the other disciples said the same. I believe they genuinely meant this. (Matthew 26:35)

They were living alongside their Messiah. They had experiential knowledge of the Christ and became frustrated at the news that they would turn their back on their Teacher. They would never break away from Him and wanted to reassure Him of their zeal.

And yet soon enough they scatter - they deny - they run and hide - they disown - they become confused and depressed - they become the jokes of their neighbors...they lose that electrified connection that at one point in time was so strong and powerful and divine.

You've run. You've scattered. You've disconnected from the Divine that so powerfully redeemed you. Reconnect. Continue shedding the old and taking on the new:
Like in salvation - dying to self.
Like in baptism - along with Christ.
Like in sacrifice - loving others more than self.
Regeneration - from the old to the new.

Are you willing to live deeply, electrifyingly connected to Christ? His static-bearer.

Read Romans 6 - dead to sin, alive in Christ. 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5 - wisdom of God over mans. Jeremiah 17:7-8.

Word of Beard

'Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer!' Matthew 26:46

Refreshing isn't it. That we follow a Lord who spent hours in prayer seeking the appropriate heart and mind for histories most intense oncoming struggle.

And when it reared it's ugly head this Leader stood, gathered His closest followers, and gracefully but directly confronted the betrayer head on.

Are you praying and confronting...or sleeping?

Read Matthew 26:31-46. Take notes.

We Know Cain

There are pains that are unexplainable even when good explanations abound. There are unacceptable offerings we give to God that externally appear beautiful and sacrificial...and yet they pain Him as dirty, unacceptable.

Why did Cain murder his brother. Why was his sacrifice unacceptable to the Lord.

There are pains that exist and that is simply that. Seasons of struggle emotional, mental, etc. Hurts that sting for moments, days, years...both us and the Lord.

Our typical immediate response, our initial coping mechanism is to take matters into our own hands. Our hands are fallible, small, fragile...dirty. And we know this. We know Cain. And we respond again and again with the same frail tools.

Yes, I believe many of our pains can be traced to our own co-missional sins...I believe Cain would be in this camp whatever the root.
Yet sometimes things just hurt and there is no one to blame. Maybe not even ourselves. No finger to point. No shaking fists at God. No matter to take into our hands. No acceptable explanation. Not that God is uninformed or lacking control, but that we would not and could not understand.

Sometimes we simply need to meditate on the way of Cain and wonder if we are acting on his behalf.

Always, however, we meditate on the way of Yeshua and ponder whether we're following in His steps. Living an attitude of set-apartness, an attitude that is honoring to our God in the midst of our unexplainable and unacceptable pains.

Read Matthew 11:25-30 for rest from the pain. Read Genesis 4 and 1 John 3:11-12.

The Courageous New Era

'What is the sign of the new era? Gods giving of His Spirit to His people - not the outward, physical sign of water baptism but the inward sign of Spirit baptism.' - D. Bock

You know this. But what if you read it as a call to live with courage and confidence and power. To be content with a spiritual wisdom that far exceeds the knowledge of Plato, Einstein or Hitchens.

John's proclamation of the Savior is divinely courageous. It's charismatic. It's founded in a divine guidance that flowed from the Spirit. John wasn't scared to ignite among his people an unruly awareness of  the shifting of the heavenly realms.

Anyone can make spiritual noise and make it loudly without much consequence (or fruit), but John brought this noise to his culture, his people in real time and with eternal success.

He took on his spiritual leaders - 'you snakes, you scoundrels'

He took on the pagan ruler - 'you murderer, you adulterer'

This wild prophet steadfastly cried out to the heavens that every man would be ready for a new era.

A new era designed to painfully and yet soothingly re-shape us deep within: heart, soul, mind and body. It's the same Spirit at work in John and his enormous proclamation of life that is at work in us today.

It's mysterious. It's entirely supernatural. It's dangerously simple. It's culturally courageous. How amazing is it that something spiritually invisible has so holistically impacted the physical world eternally.

The New Era has come. Is it an inward or outward source of courage shaping your life?

Read Darrell L. Bock's Recovering the Real Lost Gospel (pg12) - Read Luke 3 more on Johns ministry.

Kingdom Cycle

The Kingdom is not simply a 'then and there' locale that will one day replace our worldly system - the Kingdom is the original creation fused together with our current fractured one.

Miracles, truth proclamation and Gospel living are avenues for experiencing the original creation. Avenues for knowing that the divine nature the of eternal God is here and that His Kingdom is redeeming the earth and reforming it to its natural state - perfection. This is not replacement but reconciliation.

This is our Kingdom.

We have entered into it so we must continue to reveal it's true nature in all we do, say, believe. We are the firstfruits of restoration. Yes there will be an end - Yes it's incredibly horrifying that many will not live within the eternal kingdom. That is why we must be willing to live with a Kingdom mindset here and now. Without exception.

As our worldview transforms so do our beliefs and subsequently our actions. In the diagram above we see the cyclical rhythm to a life living out the Kingdom attitude. It flows as such:

Preaching Kingdom is a catalyst for proclaiming King

Proclaiming King is a catalyst for teaching Kingdom values

Teaching Kingdom values is a catalyst for living on mission

Living on mission is a catalyst for Preaching Kingdom...

Read Tim Kellers 'The Prodigal God' for more on the Kingdom.
Read Matthew's gospel chapter 4:12-25 to catch the beginning of this rhythm of life. Jesus Teaches, Preaches and Demonstrates Miracles.
Listen to my recent teaching 'It Begins' for a more in depth look at this cyclical idea of following Jesus in the Kingdom.