So I have been having the HARDEST time trying to let get my brain get to a point where I can just chill. This is what I have come up with since I am now just starting to emerge from a haze of other peoples theology and books up the yin yang and seminars and lectures and MORE BOOKS!!!!. lol.
I love books and reading since I started to dive into something that was deeper than just me. ( more on this later maybe). I started to understand how importance it is to be reading other peoples interpretation of an issue or a way that they saw and applied something, and whether or not it was affective and useful to them in their situation. This is invaluable experience and is important that we need to be reading.
That being said it also just as important and probably more important that we also take the time to let that information become our own. Not that DA Carson's interpretation of the eschatological return of Christ will become my own, necessarily, or Allan Hirsch's view and application of Biblical discipleship NEEDS to be mine after I have read his book on it. But rather that we need to take some time to mull over what has been read and let it filter its way into how we think and always always be weighing it against scripture.
I think that a lot of this comes down to how we see the world, and as a Christian a lot of it comes down to how we see scripture in light of how I see the world.( more on that later, once I get myself organized here)
I've been reading John and just letting myself unwind and get back to reality, aka scripture and stop reading opinions and view points. A good friend and a big brother to me told me recently that it's important to always be reading something if that is what you like to do, but always keep one foot in the Gospels ( Matthew, Mark Luke or John) and the other in whatever else you are studying at the time. we need to always be reading the words of Jesus because that is what everything else is based on. I think that this is an incredibly simple and very true statement.
In John it talks about how when John is doing his thing and dunking people in the river. Jesus comes to see him. John says one small statement and with that one statement he gives up everything that his life's work has accumulated. All the time that he spent chilling out in the desert and eating bugs will begin to come to a close with one statement. " Behold the lamb of God". This statement causes John's disciples to leave him and follow Jesus.
I think that this speaks volumes to all parties involved. 1. John. and 2 the disciples.
1. John recognized the point and he did not hold onto his little posse like so many leaders today could be easily accused of. I went to a small small conference recently here in Ontario and the premise was the idea of house Churches. The speaker ( the only speaker) said that house Church "was the only Biblical way of doing Church". One of his main reasons for this was that pastors tend to cling to the pulpit just like a factory worker will cling to his union rights and the contractual obligation of the company to keep him employed and because under this accusation pastor are doing this, the Church suffers because Church leaders are afraid to say what needs to be said and do things in the manor in which they need to be done out of fear that the congregation wont give them a nice Christmas bonus. All though I did feel that the speaker was nuts there were enough people, granted stillnot that many but enough that the mentality of the pastoral position needs to be discussed in this sense.
2. Is the disciples. They recognized what John was talking about and that the teacher is not better that the student. They didn't stay with John and try to justify it somehow. They followed the message and not the messenger. Jesus is the message and they got that. They would have to be fools to just let him walk by and NOT FOLLOW HIM.
I sometimes have to ask myself if sometimes I follow the messenger and not the message. How closely could they really have been listening in the first place if they didn't, they would have missed the whole thing that John had been talking about anyways. The mark of true disciple in their context or ours, is that disciples follows the message regardless of how charismatic and intriguing the messenger is.
Anyways that's all for now I am done my middle of the night rant, comment if you like.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Start with brokeness and add humility
When we read scripture we find certain people who are just naturally wired to be leaders, whether for good or not. This is something that has fascinated me and I want to just look at a few of these men who lead men for Jesus.
God tends to make leaders when they are the most broken and opening themselves up to His mercy because they are so busted up.
I love Paul, I like to read the letters that he writes to people who know and trust him. His words of encouragement and rebuke are some of the most in-depth writings ever written. He displays the attributes of a Godly leader in how he stand up for what is right and just which is of Jesus and the cross. He is not afraid to get in a tussle with people who have authority and will fight back. He is even unafraid to correct those who he respects as being above him in apostleship. He walks the walk and talks the talk of the gospel.
The Bible also illustrated for its readers how Paul became such a man and it shows a glimpse of how he was prior to God gaining a hold on his life.
One very important attribute that is absolutely crucial to good leadership as described by the Bible is humility. When we start in Acts 9 Paul is not yet who is going to be. He is Saul, a man who is like a 1st century, Jewish, James Bond running all of the place taking out Christians in the name of God.
Paul was built from the start as a leader. We know this from Acts 9, it says that when he was on the road to Damascus with his new license to kill ( aka a letter to the synagogue 9:2), that he had men with him (Acts 9:7). Paul is already a leader in the most basic sense which is that men will follow him.
So this moment is the climax of Saul who is very soon to become Paul’s life. He is given all kinds of authority to do what needs to be done according to the Jewish authorities of that time and he is at a high point of his pride and self reliance. This is where he changed from becoming an empty ring leader of a pack of thugs to a discipler and a teacher of the faith. But before he can become this “chosen instrument”, he must first be humbled. (Acts 9: 3-6)
Paul sees a vision of Jesus Christ after his death, burial, resurrection and ascension that is unique to him alone in this way. Paul is put in such a position where he just became the lowest guy on the totem pole rather than the boss. He is physically put onto the ground and told to follow order and told to “ enter the city and you will be told what you are to do”. He must first be broken before he is of any use. This is the starting point of Paul’s long life of preaching about God’s mercy for the humble and also His just wrath towards our unrepentant selves.
King David, the King of a nation that was hand chosen by God himself to triumph and fail based upon their adherence to His law and what he wants them to do.
When at the end of his life when he has conquered nations, been conquered ( by his own son) and been restored, after he has felt so far away from God’s good side that he wrote “ O Lord do not rebuke me on your anger nor discipline me in your wrath. For your arrows have sunk into me, and your hand has come down on me”, (Psalm 38: 1-2) and has also felt co close to God in a personal relationship that he wrote “Commit your way to the LORD: trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as a light.” (Psalm 37: 5-6)
Nearing the end of his life when he has seen the hand of God so clearly working in and around his life he remains humble.
1 Kings 1:47 “Moreover, the king's servants came to congratulate our lord King David, saying, 'May your God make the name of Solomon more famous than yours, and make his throne greater than your throne.' And the king bowed himself on the bed”.
Even at the end his gives over his authority over the people of Israel in a quiet and humble manor. He does it willingly and not begrudgingly.
The recognition that all authority and all responsibilities we have been given come from God is a crucial element of any form of ministry, because He wants it back. That why he gave it to us.
John 3:30 " He must increase, but I must decrease".
God tends to make leaders when they are the most broken and opening themselves up to His mercy because they are so busted up.
I love Paul, I like to read the letters that he writes to people who know and trust him. His words of encouragement and rebuke are some of the most in-depth writings ever written. He displays the attributes of a Godly leader in how he stand up for what is right and just which is of Jesus and the cross. He is not afraid to get in a tussle with people who have authority and will fight back. He is even unafraid to correct those who he respects as being above him in apostleship. He walks the walk and talks the talk of the gospel.
The Bible also illustrated for its readers how Paul became such a man and it shows a glimpse of how he was prior to God gaining a hold on his life.
One very important attribute that is absolutely crucial to good leadership as described by the Bible is humility. When we start in Acts 9 Paul is not yet who is going to be. He is Saul, a man who is like a 1st century, Jewish, James Bond running all of the place taking out Christians in the name of God.
Paul was built from the start as a leader. We know this from Acts 9, it says that when he was on the road to Damascus with his new license to kill ( aka a letter to the synagogue 9:2), that he had men with him (Acts 9:7). Paul is already a leader in the most basic sense which is that men will follow him.
So this moment is the climax of Saul who is very soon to become Paul’s life. He is given all kinds of authority to do what needs to be done according to the Jewish authorities of that time and he is at a high point of his pride and self reliance. This is where he changed from becoming an empty ring leader of a pack of thugs to a discipler and a teacher of the faith. But before he can become this “chosen instrument”, he must first be humbled. (Acts 9: 3-6)
Paul sees a vision of Jesus Christ after his death, burial, resurrection and ascension that is unique to him alone in this way. Paul is put in such a position where he just became the lowest guy on the totem pole rather than the boss. He is physically put onto the ground and told to follow order and told to “ enter the city and you will be told what you are to do”. He must first be broken before he is of any use. This is the starting point of Paul’s long life of preaching about God’s mercy for the humble and also His just wrath towards our unrepentant selves.
King David, the King of a nation that was hand chosen by God himself to triumph and fail based upon their adherence to His law and what he wants them to do.
When at the end of his life when he has conquered nations, been conquered ( by his own son) and been restored, after he has felt so far away from God’s good side that he wrote “ O Lord do not rebuke me on your anger nor discipline me in your wrath. For your arrows have sunk into me, and your hand has come down on me”, (Psalm 38: 1-2) and has also felt co close to God in a personal relationship that he wrote “Commit your way to the LORD: trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as a light.” (Psalm 37: 5-6)
Nearing the end of his life when he has seen the hand of God so clearly working in and around his life he remains humble.
1 Kings 1:47 “Moreover, the king's servants came to congratulate our lord King David, saying, 'May your God make the name of Solomon more famous than yours, and make his throne greater than your throne.' And the king bowed himself on the bed”.
Even at the end his gives over his authority over the people of Israel in a quiet and humble manor. He does it willingly and not begrudgingly.
The recognition that all authority and all responsibilities we have been given come from God is a crucial element of any form of ministry, because He wants it back. That why he gave it to us.
John 3:30 " He must increase, but I must decrease".
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