We have a God that is loving people back to Himself, and he is allowing us to be a part of that. If we're so in love with Jesus our heart is on fire, were going to fall in love with every person we encounter, because they're His beloved and we want to love everything our Lover loves. Not only that, He said He would come in to our inner beings and dwell in our hearts.
I urge you to ask and pray and wrestle with what has meaning for you. Really though. What holds the deepest meaning. What is your passion? What lights your heart on fire? What do you never want to stop doing? Who are you? What does your worth rest in?
I stumbled upon this man who's become my hero. I've thought about him I don't know how many times every day since my friend read to me about him. His name is Dominique. He was one of the Little Brothers of Jesus along with Brennan Manning who wrote this book called the signature of jesus. Dominique, when he was in his fifties and dying of cancer, went to live in a parisian slum where he worked all night at a factory and went to sit on a little bench at a park every day, when his shift got out at 8 am and be with the winos, misfits, and creepy old homeless guys who hung out there. Brennan says the word was enfleshed on his bones. He says that he told this rag tag group, when they asked him to tell them about his life, that God loves them tenderly and stubbornly and sent Jesus for guys just like themselves. He died alone, and the last entry written in his journal said...
All that is not the love of God has no meaning for me. I can truthfully say that I have no interest in anything but the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. If God wants it to, my life will be useful through my word and witness. If he wants it to, my life will bear fruit through my prayers and sacrifices. But the usefulness of my life is his concern, not mine. It would be indecent of me to worry about that.
Man.
Pretty darn beautiful.
So for me, thats my life. The love of God. Not whether make a difference or change a girls life, not whether I write a book, not whether I become a church leader or a social worker or a world changer. Paul says that our first priority is to press into God and make ourselves at home in his heart, and let him make his home in ours so that we know how long and high and deep and wide his love is. Paul says that we resolve to know nothing but Christ.
He's enough.
Is there hope in anything else? Seek. Question. I beg you to fight to discover what you're hope is in. For me? There is nothing else. If you discover deep beauty and worth and satisfaction and meaning elsewhere, lets talk about it. I want to hear. I want to listen. I haven't. But don't take my word for it--because if you just go through the motions I'll never know but there will be a day where the entirety of your heart is laid before God.
I used to get defensive, but the more sure you are something is true, the less threatened you feel by everything else. Which is why I love to listen and talk with whoever whenever about whats caught their heart on fire.
For those who are following Christ, disciple someone. Every disciple is also a discipler. Nothing will push to Jesus and reveal to you your brokenness, the way pursuing just one person will. Don't worry about whether or you're "ready." You are. And where you are not, is where God comes in. And does what can not do. In fact, the less ready, the better because the more we can get out of the way with our agendas and let the Spirit move.
I'll admit, its dangerous. Because you give up control. We have to say, I'll die to myself that this person may have life. Which will mean our agenda is no longer first. Which may mean that we have to share parts of our heart we'd rather keep cloaked in darkness. Or that we will be faced with sin in our lives that we're not ready to let go of, but we have to in order to disciple people with the same struggles. Brokenness is literally illuminated in discipling. I have found that I don't want the girls I disciple to surpass me. I don't want them to be happier, or more mature, or more useful than I am. Oh, sin. The people I love most are the ones I am most likely to hate as well. The ones I am most able to crush and be crushed by. It also means we have to call sin sin. We have to love the Word of God more than the people we disciple and more than how they feel about us.
Perhaps most of all, we want to be their Savior. We want the glory. We want to keep them for ourselves. Keep them dependent on us. They belong to Jesus.
God reminds us
There is only one Redeemer.
Thats me.
And it hits us all of a sudden that the people we are in relationship with, in community with, discipling and being discipled by are broken. Straight up awful. Awful to us at times. And then we realize that we're even worse. That we want to keep them from thriving. That we want them to tell us were good and valuable and necessary. That we want to be the Savior.
So where does God come in. When he's faced with broken people being led by people who are even worse and its supposed to be his church, his representation on this earth.
You have failed me, but I will remain faithful to you.
In numbers, the people attacked moses for not leading them well and saying they wished he had left them alone in Egypt. Moses, in his exhaustion from personal attacks, acts as if he is their deliverer. God said he would provide water by when moses struck the rock, but moses tells them that he himself is providing the water.
yet
When the rock was struck, water came out abundantly.
abundant grace.
people are awful, moses is worse, God is faithful. God said
I will humble myself to deliver them from their own complaint where they undermine and criticize who I am.
And the rock? The rock from which water poured abundantly? We see it again. Years and years later. When a man, who is not just man, is struck. The rock is struck by the people who need it desperately. Who were made by the rock. Who the rock came to save.
The rock is Jesus.
Grace is the abundance poured.
(most of this last section is from Bryan Chapell who spoke on Numbers 20 and leadership at vintage today. the title and the very beginning came from Shane Claiborne and a prostitute who taught him lots about what Jesus does to a heart)
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