The Most Important Things

Recently, I have been talking with my children about the “First Answer.” What is the “First Answer?” It’s, Yes. The reason we have been talking about this is that excuses, arguments and “buts” arise when an instruction is given. Nobody is looking for any of those. We are all very tired of hearing excuses as to why things can’t get done (i.e. controlled budget in the gov’t or why a project “can’t” be done). I would rather have someone tell me, “no” than make excuses. At that point, I can deal with their rebellion because it is blatant and obvious. Whereas somebody who is always giving excuses tries to veil their motives through a partial “yes.”  Yet, we live in a culture today that has ZERO respect for yes and no. And, in many instances, is afraid of saying: “no.”

Don’t believe me? When asked by Facebook if somebody is your friend, what are your options? Yes and no? Wrong. It’s “confirm” and “not now.” Why is that? Fear of responsibility and follow through. (It’s also a measure of tolerance. Who are you to say if somebody is your friend or not.) If somebody friended you and you hit “not now” you have the chance to weasel out of why you declined their “friending.” You just didn’t want to be friends with them right now. Contrast that with this answer, “No, I do not know you. Therefore, I am declining your friend request.” Sounds harsh? Not really. Yet, too much tolerance and political correctness in our lives pushes us into the grey areas of life. To the point that we live in fear of being considered “intolerant.” So, what does Jesus have to say about yes and no?

Jesus has always been very clear about the answers we are to have. He was also very clear with His answers. He says in the Gospels to let your “Yes be yes and your no, no.” Later, Paul writes “All His promises in Christ Jesus are Yes and Amen.” (paraphrased.) These are insights into how God desires us to respond.  There’s also the parable of the 2 men who the Master offered work to. One said, “no” and later came back to work. The other said, “yes” and never got around to it. This only furthers our example of being forthright and honest in our answers.

The point that is being made here is that our first answer to Jesus should be yes, and we should follow through with it. I want my children to be people of their word, accountability and responsibility. I want to be that too! My first answer to authority and to Jesus is YES! And Amen!

What’s your first answer?

One of the most important things in a Christian’s life is…fruit. Making disciples is fruit. God desires that we produce fruit in our lives! Jesus talked about fruit a lot. IN fact, He explained to His disciples that when they understood the parable of the sower(which is about seed and fruit), they would understand all the other parables. So, let’s take a look at the parable of the sower.

In Mark 4:13-20, Jesus explains the parable, there are 4 soils that the farmer scatters seed on: the pathway, the rocky, the thorny and the good soil. We could spend countless hours talking about each soil but for the sake of brevity, let’s look specifically at the thorny soil.

The thorny soil represents those who have allowed the soulishness of their life to drown out the Spirit of God. They are worried about this life (the temporal), the lure of wealth and desire for other things. The thorny soil is the realm of the lukewarm! The lukewarm are always caught up in carnal, soulish pursuits such as: money, possessions, and worrying. The Spirit-filled are pursuing souls, eternity and relationship with God. The lukewarm hear the word of God and let it get choked or drowned out by the temporal. Don’t be thorny soil. Don’t let this world crowd out the seed that was sown! The worst part about this type of soil is that it produces no fruit!

We must become good soil. Those who hear the word of God and receive it. That word “receive” in the greek means to accept as one’s own. Accept the word of God and the word of being “in the Spirit” as your own today. Become a person who produces 30, 60 and 100 fold harvest! Only you can keep your “soil” good. You must cultivate a heart of sensitivity to the voice of the Spirit. You must keep the offenses of this world from making you into a hardened pathway. Only you can keep your mind pure so that it doesn’t become rocky.

Become good soil and produce fruit!

I love Jesus. I love His word, it always builds my faith and increases my understanding. There is a major lack, in the church today, of spiritual understanding. Many are not aware of the Holy Spirit or are quickly stuffing Him away. We need spiritual understanding to help us in every situation because we live in a spiritual world. Anyone of us can have natural understanding, just by living life. But there IS a difference between natural understanding and spiritual understanding. We MUST discern and pursue spiritual understanding. Spiritual understanding is an awareness, recognition and dedication to hearing the what the Spirit is saying.

If you are not aware that the Holy Spirit wants to speak to you all the time, you lack spiritual understanding. If you are not recognizing the Holy Spirit is working (and wants to work) in every situation, you lack spiritual understanding. If you are not pursuing intimacy with the Holy Spirit everyday, you will never have spiritual understanding!

In Matthew 13:12 Jesus says this, “to those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given, and they will have an abundance of knowledge.” I call this the “spiritual understanding parable of the talents.” If you don’t use the understanding given to you by the Holy Spirit, you will lose it. This situation happens in many believers lives. They hear something from God and they don’t apply it or search it out. The result is that they lose their understanding. I don’t want to be that way. I want to be so hungry to hear God’s voice, that I hear something from Him everyday!

In fact, it has been my personal goal to hear from the voice of God everyday of my life. This has helped me understand the bible, the world and many other things. But the Holy Spirit has spoken to me, recently, and put a new goal in my spirit. The goal is this: to be “in the Spirit” all day long. It may sound simple, but let me tell you–it takes more effort than it sounds! Yet I have found great joy in walking in the Spirit! And it has only been by the Spirit that I have been able to walk in the Spirit for any amount of my day. (Full disclosure: I have not lived a whole day in the Spirit yet. But I press on!)

I would encourage you today, be hungry for more of the Holy Spirit. Pursue understanding that comes from the Holy Spirit! Make yourself recognize and be aware that the Holy Spirit was given by Jesus, to help you out…in everything! In all your getting get understanding, in the Spirit!

I am sure we are all familiar with the phrase, “opportunity knocks.” Well, it’s true. There are many forms of opportunity and it’s “knocking.” Typically, we associate that phrase with some sort of financial gain, but that’s not all it represents. Here are 3 opportunities you should NEVER pass up!

1) The opportunity to receive Jesus Christ. Rev. 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, Iwill come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” Jesus was never overly aggressive in His ministry. He never opened “doors” Himself. He would knock and wait for each individual to open it. Open the door. If you miss this opportunity, it could be your last!

2) The opportunity to serve. Servanthood is a seed into the life of another person! You may not have any material possession to sow into somebody’s life. But you do have your life! Sow your life into serving others. As you serve others you will gain favor and more opportunity to serve. Rebecca served Abraham’s servant unquestioningly and her reward was: her husband Isaac, the inheritance of Abraham and birthing Israel! All she did was serve. Who can you serve today?

3) The opportunity to learn. This is important because, learning (and more importantly revelation from God) increases our capacity. I love to read books that expand and push my thinking outside of the norm. Having said, that I won’t just read anything. I am very selective as to what goes into my spirit through my mind. My first love is the word of God and I read it everyday.

Also, learning doesn’t come from books. Who is mentoring you? Who is holding you accountable in your life? Who is pushing you to be great? If you want uncommon results you need an uncommon mentor. (Think Elijah and Elisha.) You need to find a mentor who will press you onto greater results. Often times, this is someone who is not easy to be around. Elijah told Elisha to leave him 3 different times! He also asked Elisha what he wanted, after Elisha had burned all of his livelihood! Talk about hard stuff! Jesus told people to eat His flesh and drink His blood. He told them to let the dead bury themselves. Paul told Timothy he had to be circumcised. The list goes on. If you want uncommon success, you must find an uncommon mentor.

The door of your life is being knocked on today. Open the door! Receive Jesus! Find someone to serve! Read a book! Find an uncommon mentor!

Spiritually dull is becoming the norm in the western church. We seem to have placed an inordinate amount of focus on the temporal. We are always thinking about how to improve our lives on earth or how we can become more successful. Of course, we have created elaborate justifications for it all. We say things like: I want to be rich to bless others. Or, we are just trying to reach more people by becoming more diplomatic in our gospel presentation.(note: I am not against generosity and/or gospel preaching) Instead of preaching in–depth messages and bringing more believers to maturity we end up creating a fickle, temporal christianity. A kind of christianity that gets offended and hurt at basic gospel truths. The writer of Hebrews puts it this way: “There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen.” OUCH! Imagine how immature those believers had to have been for them to say that! What’s even more shocking is that the writer is talking to jewish converts. Jews were required to memorize the first 5 books of the “bible.” As opposed to our 1–minute bible christianity.

Anyway, the argument gets worse as he continues, “you have been believers so long now that you OUGHT to be teaching others.” OUCH again! How many christians are held back or are afraid to teach others? Part of that is their own fault, part is the fault of the american church which has done a poor job of properly maturing believers. There are countless christians who really should be discipling/ teaching others but are not because they are content to sit and “listen” to the word. This ought not be so!

Finally, the writer gets to this part, “Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong.(also good and evil)” It’s on that verse that I want to focus. A definition of immaturity can be this: the inability to discern the difference between right and wrong. That seems overly simplistic, doesn’t it? Yet, how many christians do you know who cannot do that? They cannot discern that listening to music with overtly sexual and/or perverted themes is evil. They cannot discern that watching horror movies is wrong. They cannot discern that rebellion and pride are still sin in God’s eyes. All the while they continue to do their own will rather than submit to God. If you desire to be mature in your faith, you must begin to understand the difference between good and evil and right and wrong. The only way to do this is to know the Word of God and to know the God of the Word.

Notice also, how it says “who through training have the skill?” There is no shortage of training offered christians in America. We have bible colleges, internships and every church has a litany of training courses for believers. Yet, the problem is that no one has the skill to recognize the difference. Why is that?! (I say it’s the training, but that’s for another post.)

God’s desire that everyone of us become mature believers. Here’s a way I look at it: if you have ever been in a relationship, then you know that the more time goes on the greater you understand the other person and their nuances.You really begin to understand what they like and don’t like. This same idea can be applied to God, the one who created relationship. If you want to know what God loves and hates – SPEND TIME WITH HIM AND HIS WORD! It really is that simple. The more you know Him and become like Him, the more mature you will become. Our goal is to become like Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Whatever you obsess about, you will be possessed about. This is a simple way that the devil works in our life. He will work overtime to get us obsessed with something. We get obsessed with money. Or we get obsessed with having material items. Or we get obsessed about a negative thought. The more you obsess on something the deeper it will get into your mind. Then, the deeper it gets into your mind it begins to saturate into your spirit. That obsession opens a door to the demonic and allows for oppression (and possession if it goes too far) which has no place in a Believer’s life!

Perhaps, you have been obsessing about past failures. Or maybe you have been obsessing about something bad that happened in your life. No matter what you are obsessing about, STOP! Obsession will lead to possession. That’s why the Bible tells us to forgive, it tells us to focus on heaven, it tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus, etc. The Bible is filled with all kinds of exhortations to stop obsessing about our ourselves and this earth!

One of our greatest obsessions, right now in America, is with the temporal. We are obsessed with clothes, homes, cars, church buildings and the list goes on. Yet, we give no thought to the the eternal. A great benefit of the Bible is it’s timeless message. It applies to all mankind past, present, and future! It will never grow old or old-fashioned. But how much of our stress and tension is related to our temporal mindset? All of it! If you are madly in love with Jesus, you’re serving Him faithfully, and pleasing Him; what is there to be stressed about? Some would say, “I am stressed about making more money.” Well if you are content with what God has given you (and if you live in the USA you are in the top 10% of the richest people in the world) there’s no reason to stress, God will provide. What about my job? If you’re pleasing God, you will definitely be pleasing your employers and walking in God’s perfect will.

Too many Christians stumble over sins that continue to haunt them all their life. Why? Obsession. They are obsessed with trying to “conquer” their flesh. When, in reality, they should be obsessed with Jesus. The writer of Hebrews puts it this way, “…let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up…” Then he answers our question of “how?” He says, “we do this by KEEPING OUR EYES on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.”

The answer to your obsession with sin and how to get over it, is to be obsessed with the One who defeated sin! Be obsessed with the eternal. Be obsessed with Jesus!

“…Appointed by the command of God our Savior and Christ Jesus, who gives us hope.”

Every word in the bible is a eternal, spiritual word. (John 6:63) These words are written to us as a way of describing the nature, character, personality of God as well as His relationship with creation. These are all words of hope. Much has been said on the topic of “hope” recently. From President Obama’s book entitled, “The Audacity of Hope” to preachers across the nation proclaiming “a message of hope” to everyday people seeing the need for hope in an ever declining world.

But what does “hope” really mean? Many people are placing their hope in economies, government, salaries, future jobs and opportunities. Basically, we are putting our hope in temporary things. But true hope is eternal. Hope, in the New Testament, refers specifically to the idea of eternal salvation and the One who authors that eternal salvation. Paul gives an excellent picture of this hope later on in chapter 1: ”But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of His great patience with even the worst of sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in Him and receive eternal life.” What a glorious and praiseworthy God we have! Paul’s explaining that if he, being the “worst” sinner, can be saved then salvation is readily available for all who receive it. What a great hope Jesus has given us.

Our hope is not placed in any earthly vessel. Our hope is not contained in a salary or a possession. Our hope is not resting on the government to fix/stimulate an economy. No, if you really want to talk about a message of hope it’s entirely in Jesus Christ. Hope is not a feeling it’s a realization of the work of the Cross in your life. The Psalmist writes, “My hope is in your Word (Jesus)…and do not let me be ashamed of that hope.” If you want to talk to someone about the audacity of hope, tell them about a God who audaciously sent His only Son to save His people.

If you want to hope in something, put your hope in Jesus’ saving power in your life.

good vs evil

David was a giant killer. He took down Goliath, the Philistines great warrior, by the Spirit of the Lord, a sling and 5 smooth stones. He also raised up a generation of giant killers. In the last verses of 2 Samuel 21, there is a list of the 4 giants that David’s mighty men conquered. One had a spearhead that weighed more than 7 pounds, another was a man named Sath (literally, “tall”), one man with a spear handle as thick as a weavers beam and finally a “huge man” with 24 fingers and toes! All of these descriptions deal with one thing: fear. The sheer size of these giants led to giant features; spearheads, fingers and toes, etc. Yet, when you have been around someone who has conquered giants you know what to do. You know how to think, because your leader has been there. You know what to do because your leader has conquered a giant before.

It’s the law of mentorship and wisdom. You receive the benefits of wisdom from your mentor. Rather than having to re-invent the wheel, you gain the knowledge much easier than learning it yourself. There’s no need to fear because David has already slain one giant. And being around David, well, he exudes the confidence and leadership that allow you to go into battle full of faith and confidence in the Lord.

Who’s your mentor? What giants have they fought? What wisdom and impartation are you receiving that will help you overcome your giants?

“In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.” Judges 17:6, 18:1, 19:1, 21:25.

I am no scholar, but any time the bible lists something more than once I take notice. Here, the bible records 4 different times where “Israel had no king” and “the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.” What’s so important about this? This is the definition of religious anarchy. Basically, you have a god-aware people who have a form of godliness but are denying the relationship. They are all living as individualistic towns under their tribe (Judah, Benjamin, Manasseh, et al.) and doing whatever seems right to them. It is only when they are under extreme duress and trouble that they cry out to God.

Is this beginning to sound familiar? Whenever you have a god-aware people, who have no relationship with God, you have spiritual apathy. Whenever there is no king and people do whatever is right in their own eyes, you have anarchy. Whenever you only talk to God is when things go horribly wrong, you have no relationship. To be in a kingdom means that you submit to a king, belong to a king and are a part of the king’s domain. The religious anarchy mindset is one that pervades our current Christian culture in America. We are all a part of our tribes (this church or that denomination). We are pretty much doing whatever seems right to us – see the different examples of how the “gospel” is preached. (Note: the fact that we have “gospels” that are specific i.e. prosperity, full, baptist, etc. is a sign that we do not have a common king, because in a Kingdom there are no opposing factions). We are aware that God is there, but few actually have real relationship with Him. Then, when our nation begins to crumble, we cry out and ask God why He is punishing us?

The solution to this problem? Seek first the kingdom of God AND His righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Get into the kingdom, submit WHOLLY to the King and join the King’s army. It’s really that simple. Total surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ is the answer. We should be doing whatever is right in HIS EYES. There is righteousness, peace and joy in the Kingdom of God. So, are you going to surrender to the King?

Earlier this year I read a book by Alan Hirsch entitled, “The Forgotten Ways.” It’s an excellent book that dissects, both, modern and 1st C. Christian movements (among other things). It is extremely well written and in-depth. It is filled with great research as well as biblical revelation. I would put it among my top 10 books all time. Here is a video that, in a tiny nutshell, sums up one of his chapters on discipleship. It’s very brief but it is loaded with great material.

If you haven’t noticed America is crumbling faster than we can organize, boycott and even vote. The only way out of this is to expand the Kingdom of God through discipleship, rather than preserve a human republic (i.e. American government). I have many more thoughts on that to which I may write more at a future date. But for now, enjoy the video!

Update: Here’s another video. Really once you get to the website watch them all.

Alan Hirsch: Jesus Is Lord [VERGE video] from Verge Network on Vimeo.