Church

So I started reading this book called Revolution by Barna and it has touched basis on a lot of things that’s been on my heart lately.

I attend this leadership/prayer group regularly and one of the girls in the group one week was sharing some of her struggles about how her mom was in the hospital sick and she was drained with taking care of her younger siblings, making dinner, as well as going to school. We prayed that God would give her strength, peace, and comfort.
But then God convicted me. If we are the church, the body of Christ, if we are truly to be Jesus’ body, what could we have done to meet her needs? Some of us could have helped her make dinner for her family, we could’ve written her notes of encouragement, or taken her out to relieve her from the stress that she experiences at home, or those closer to her family could have visited her mom.

Then God suddenly brought my attention to a close friend who had been struggling financially. And I clearly remember her sharing this with us (group of friends) with tears in her eyes. And I regret that we didn’t do anything as sisters in Christ.

And I realized that the reason why the world can’t tell the difference between a Christian and a non-believer is because we aren’t being the church, we are merely church-goers, or Jesus-admirers. We make no effort to advance his kingdom, or put down or own will and take up His.

Do we act in love as Jesus did without expecting anything in return? How are we supposed to love our enemies and love strangers if we don’t even know how to love our own brothers and sisters?

What if small groups shared their needs and thought of ways they could be the church and meet that need? And once the needs within the group are met, what if each person in that small group advanced God’s kingdom by bringing in the need of someone they knew outside the church to the group and thought of ways they could meet that need by being the living body of Christ? What if the money given to the church was distributed within small groups as needed to advance his kingdom, loving and meeting the needs of those around us before spending it on better sound systems and buildings? When somebody asks us why we do what we do, what if we are able to say that God wants you to know that he loves you, or that we want to love in the same way God loves, or that we are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus, rather than debating and muttering theology and empty words? What if people outside of church began to praise God because Jesus is alive?! What if people began to share testimonies of how the living church has changed their lives? What if the praise time that occurs at church once a week becomes a time of praising a God who is alive, taking joy and giving thanks that lives are changed? What if we invited people to take part in this kind of ministry?!

When I look around me and look at myself, I see that things are messed up. But there is a groaning within me that things don’t have to stay that way. We can criticize the church all day…but the truth is church is made up of people and we don’t have it altogether, but God hasn’t given up on the church rather he died for the church. Rather than criticizing the church, maybe we can think of ways of being the church…even if it starts with two or three people…inviting others to be a part of advancing God’s kingdom. I asked someone what God’s kingdom looks like to him, and he responded, “A bunch of ordinary, imperfect people following a perfect God.” What does it mean to follow a God who sacrificed and bled for the church? What does it mean to follow Jesus? What was Jesus trying to say to the world when he proclaimed a love that goes beyond culture, ethnicity, and family to strangers and enemies? What does it mean to bleed for the church?

The truth is, the kingdom of God is among us (Luke 17:21). And His kingdom/God’s story will come to completion whether we like it or not. His Will will be done whether we take part in his story by advancing his kingdom or not. God wants us to be a part of his story, but that choice is in our hands. The gospel invites us to follow in the way of Jesus who embodies for us the way of the kingdom.

I just want to leave this post with one last comment. I’m reading this book called Mere Discipleship by Lee Camp and I’m just going to quote a section.

“We might summarize Revelation this way: in the ring of human history, there’s a bleeding Lamb in one corner and a dragon in the other. “Common sense” would tell us we should place our bet on the dragon—but there’s a new common sense, a new reality, in which the Lamb turns out victorious. It’s the people of God, the church, who are supposed to know that secret because the mystery has been revealed in Christ.”

“John’s Revelation proclaims that the continuity of the church’s witness in martyrdom, in participation in the blood of the Lamb, leads to victory (12:11).”

If that’s the case….maybe church is far from what it’s supposed to be. But it doesn't have to stay that way.

narrow path

You know it's kind of scary. I've been seeking after the meaning of Christianity, life, truth, and the more I read into it, the more freaked out I get about where I am, where this world is at, and where the church is at.
I mean the church tells me what Christianity is, I've heard things from people since I was little, but my ears have actually only opened to the truths only about 10 months ago. When I was first challenged, I couldn't even open the bible because the words scared me too much. It was as if not knowing was better than knowing and not doing...which is I think kinda true.

As I seek after truth, I become more and more aware that I am not living a life that God wants me to be living. The Bible is so clear, Jesus' calling to discipleship is so clear, God's calling to living for his kingdom is soooo frickin clear! And I live and pull through each day pulling my hair with something bubbling within me ready to explode. But I keep it in...I have to...I have to maintain and stay cool and just keep going right?

The good news/gospel is not about "God I believe in you. Thank you Jesus for washing my sins away. Period"
The good news proclaimed by Jesus is "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

"Repentance, metanoia, does not mean feeling badly about one's sins, kicking or shaming oneself for one's wrongdoing. Instead, repentance means change, and without change, without deep, thoroughgoing change, one could not enter and participate in the kingdom." Lee Camp

Mark 1: 15 "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"

"The "kingdom" announced by Jesus was no mere "spiritual" idea or a new "religion" or a new "personal relationship with God" or even an "opportunity to go to heaven" but a kingdom that threatened the very fabric of the political and social and religious status quo." Lee Camp

The quotes that I have written down below are some of the examples of words that challenge me and open my eyes and my ears.
What does it mean to be a follower of Christ? to take up the cross? to live as Christ lived?
Maybe the path down that road is narrow afterall...and few find it...

Favorite quotes...actually quotes that make me think is a better way of puttin git

"Jesus was not simply a missionary to the poor. He was poor...That is the Jesus we follow." Shane Claiborne
Not saying that we all need to be poor, but what does this mean to us as followers of Christ? Does it mean anything? Could possibly living with so much stuff in this life make it more difficult to follow Jesus who had nothing?

"Today, as in days past, there is no way to tell from a person's life, from his deeds, whether or not he is a believer." Leo Tolstoy

"Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ." Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Whosoever boasts that he is a Christian, the same must walk as Christ walked" Menno Simons

Kinda harsh, direct...kinda scary eh?


"As we consider what it means to be "born again"...we must ask what it means to be born again into a family in which our sisters and brothers are starving to death...It also becomes scandalous for the church to spend money on windows and building when some family members don't even have water. Welcome to the dysfunctional family of Yahweh." Shane Claiborne"

"The man that can spend money in extending his already broad acres, while his brother and his brother's children cry for bread--the woman that can spend money in purchasing a stylish bonnet, an expensive cloak, or a fine dress, merely to appear fashionable, while her sister and sister's children are shivering with cold and scarce able to cover their nakedness, are no Christians... they are on the broad road that leads to death." (David Lipscomb quoted by Lee Camp)

I think these two quotes really illustrate how being rich really does not make sense as a true disciple of Christ.


"But if we are the bodyWhy aren't His arms reaching?Why aren't His hands healing?Why aren't His words teaching?And if we are the bodyWhy aren't His feet going?Why is His love not showing them there is a way?" Casting Crowns

I love these lyrics b/c they really emphasize what it means to be the church, to be the body of Jesus.

"Jesus came not just to prepare us to die but to teach us how to live." Shane Claiborne
I totally agree. I don't believe that being a Christian is just about being saved and going to heaven when we die. To be honest if our lives aren't transformed or being transformed and if we're not living for God's kingdom now, I'm not quite sure if we've really met Jesus.

"The greatest cause of atheism is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny him with their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable." Brennan Manning
I believe that Jesus should be evident in a Christians life. This is my prayer. That people may see God evident in my life by the way I live. If I am truly a part of the body of Christ, then people should be encountering Jesus when people encounter me. This is my prayer. That I may carry the good news wherever I go by the way I live and bring God's kingdom everywhere with me.


"Love God, love people, and follow Jesus" Simple Way
I believe church needs to keep it simple...like this. It is simple and to the core.

"Love is a harsh and dreadful thing to ask of us, but it is the only answer" Dorothy Day
"This love is not sentimental but heart wrenching, the most difficult and the most beautiful thing in the world." Shane Claiborne.
Christianity is not easy...b/c we must rise above human nature and everything this world our body and mind tells us to do... and just love in a way that makes no sense at all.

"The call to "radical discipleship" is thus not a call to a burdensom moral perfectionism, but a call to leave the old ways of death and darkness, and walk in the new way of abundant life and glorious light, with the Christ who is Light and Life. There, on the path with Christ, we are loved even when we do not deserve to be loved. And there, on the path with Christ, we too are called to love those about us who do not deserve to be loved." Lee Camp
Loving the unlovely, the undeserving, the annoying, the difficult to love, the enemies. We are called to love them ('like' is a feeling. 'love' is an action) just as Christ loves us. hmmm.... He calls us to do some crazy difficult things... but if you say so... since you tell me that this is the way to living an abundant life!

"I'm not too concerned about what I am going to do. I am more interested in who I am becoming. I want to be a lover of God and people." Shane Claiborne
This is very challenging...especially in a society where our career, education and jobs are....essentially everything...how else do you survive? how else do you make money? what else would you do? If our career or achieving our career is consuming us and preventing us from becoming the person God created us to be, would God ask us to give it up and trust Him? Would God really provide for our needs when we choose to become more like him?

"When the poor meet the rich, riches will have no meaning. And when the rich meet the poor, we will see poverty come to an end." Shane Claiborne
So true. Read his book...so good.

"It is among the wealthy that we can find the most terrible poverty of all---loneliness." Mother Teresa

"The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give it away" unknown
Wow!

"There is something scandalous about grace. It's almost embarrassing that God loves losers so much." Shane Claiborne.

"Don't spin today away, cuz today will soon be gone." Switchfoot

"Oh remind me that I have not reached home" Downhere

Heart

Romans 12:9 “Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good.”

What is good?
God called his creation good several times. “He saw that it was good”
Why? I believe it is because everything before the fall was the way God intended it to be. I think clinging onto good then means when we are clinging onto and living in the way God intended things to be.

How can we know God’s intent and his heart? When we read the word, we see that God’s heart is for his kingdom where brokenness of humanity is restored and healed to the way he intends things to be. I believe that is why God has such a heart for humanity, the lost, the broken, the hurting, the hungry, the orphans, the widows. We are living in a world that isn’t the way God intends things to be, and although it was entirely due to mankind’s choices, God doesn’t want to leave us like this.
Anyways, back to the verse…so “hold on to dear life to good” I believe that in order to even do this we need to bear God’s heart. The same heart that breaks and cries and mourns for the things that God cries for. The same heart that leaps with joy when the lost are found, and when the hungry are fed. Like Mark Buchanan says in his book ‘Your God is too safe’, “He (Jesus) knows our drowsy indifference to matters of highest importance, our rabid passion for matters that are trivial. He knows we get angrier at missing a bus or being delayed on a runway than we do at crimes of genocide. He knows we rejoice more in winning a game of pinochle than we do in the news that the hungry are fed, the lost are found. So Jesus doesn’t entrust Himself to us.” (Read John 2:25) This is truly how far our heart is from God’s.

As the church we are to be God’s hands and feet. But how can we be the church/the body of Christ if we don’t bear God’s heart. If our gifts, talents, and lives aren't used for God's kingdom then it truly amounts to nothing.

This New year, I pray that God would stretch and break my heart. I pray for a heart of compassion and for a heart that beats for the same things God’s heart beats for. I don’t want to ask for forgiveness because I did something wrong but I want to cry for breaking God’s heart and ask that He would change my heart, transform me, refine me, and mold me into the way he created me to be.