I love one on one discipleship. The Lord has sent many people across my path in my life to disciple and to be discipled by and it is a great joy.
One dear friend, Jeff, and I have been meeting almost every week for over two years. Jeff and his family have had some major heartache in their life and our interactions for the first 2 years were mostly me trying to encourage them and inspire them to pursue God and His joy in their life. We have spent endless hours talking about grace and missions and all things Jesus. I have to admit that there were times I despaired that God would break through and restore these people’s passion for Him.
How overjoyed and humbly amazed I was when on March 15th of this year I get this text from Jeff (all used with permission)
“Had a revelation tonight that just might be life changing and caused all of the pieces to click firmly together. As I was chastising Daniel for his cockiness, attitude toward siblings, and a bout of disrespect toward his mom with sobbing tears streaming down his face he said, “I know I’m horrible but I don’t know how to change.”. Then as we were driving home listening to a Chris Tomlin song the words “the joy of the Lord is my strength” were playing… So combining those two concepts with what you said the other night about spiritual discipline vs brokenness before the Lord I arrive at the following… Our constant source of joy is our weakness… Because when we admit our complete inability to please Him and strive for His acceptance we free ourselves from that never-ending performance treadmill… The joy is found in the fact that not only can I never do anything to please God- but more so in the fact that I don’t HAVE to! This is the crux of the Gospel – I cannot ever please God. Ever. Never. But Christ does- past present and future… So I am free from even having to try! And every time a situation arises when my flesh, or the enemy, or another person tells me I have to step it up and discipline myself to please God or man, rather than worrying, stressing, and discouraging myself I can smile and say “nope I can’t do that! But Jesus can!”. And then hand it Him… So our weakness is our constant source of joy! So in 2 Cor 12:9-10 when Paul says I rejoice in my weakness I finally understand his joy. He is joyful because he has been freed from trying to earn it all, and his weakness is his constant consoling companion reminding him he never had to, because Christ has done and will do it all! The Gospel as clearly as I’ve ever seen it! All of the riches of heaven traded for our weakness.The greatest bargain ever! Can you write a sermon on this?!?!”
Wow! What a blessing and what a God moment for Him in His kindness to break through to Jeff. I love to watch Him at work.
So now Jeff is a totally transformed man. All he can talk about is the gospel. (what else is there after all?) He talks to people at work, neighbors, his children. Everyone around him now knows that “I can’t but Jesus can.” It is amazing. Our weekly visits are now more like fanfests where we each share the latest thing we have discovered about how good God is and what good news the gospel is. Here is a smattering of recent texts he has sent me that reveal just how God is at work in this man.
“Fear is a response of the flesh to situations you are not confident you can handle. When living out the Gospel (I can’t God can) fear is short-lived because faith has overcome it. Again, experiences that produce a fear response are simply another occasion for joy – because your fear simply confirms in you the Truth of the Gospel, namely the fact that your fear is based in truth – you can’t handle the fearful situation but Jesus can!… A dead man can’t help himself. Crucified with Christ. This is what it means – counting the flesh dead and bringing nothing to the altar but the stench of dead flesh. He must resurrect it with His Spirit and fill it with His life, His purpose, His desires, and His motivation. Everything we bring – our strength our weakness, our brilliance our stupidity, our talents our uselessness – must be crucified. This is dying daily. Everything must die, especially our best efforts! That is the mystery – that the things that need to die the most are the things we feel bring the most value! But it is NOT our sins that stand in the way of grace. No, it is the things we think we are good at that stand in the way, for these are the things that make us prideful and self reliant and lead us to believe we don’t need Him in those areas!! The enemy and your flesh has you focused on sin while congratulating you on your areas of strength. The Holy Spirit focuses you on the fact that you are broken and weak and congratulates you on the fact that you can do all things through Christ!… As a thought, fascinating to watch Elijah transition from living out the Gospel in extreme faith when calling down fire from heaven and executing the priests of Baal – to living out the Law of the flesh in extreme fear when running from Jezebel. Somehow, in a scriptural blink of an eye, he forgot the Gospel message entirely (I can’t God can) and was consumed by fear to the point of begging for death. Interesting and concerning. Peter walking on water is another. Transitioned from believing the Gospel to believing natural law in the blink of an eye. All of Scripture paints this simple picture. The Bible in four easy words. I can’t God can! This is the mystery that Stephen was explaining to the Ethiopian and that Jesus shared with the disciples on the way to Emmaus – all religions attempt to show you what you must do to be acceptable to God. But the Gospel teaches you that you can never be acceptable to God only Jesus can! So you had better be in Christ! Unfortunately for Moses he wouldn’t revel in his inability to speak well, so Aaron got the nod. Of course he couldn’t speak well on front of two million people, but God could! Our weakness should not limit us, it should enable us to accomplish things through Christ we had never dreamed possible and things we would absolutely NEVER accomplish in our areas of strength! Aaron wasn’t acting in faith. He was better at casting calves made of gold, perhaps! An area of strength for him? Just to reiterate and get your agreement – what should be your daily reminder of the hope and joy you have in Christ? Not a picture of heaven, not an inspirational verse, not your baptism record, not you daily devotional – none of those things. Your weakness, the one thing that is with you always, in your face and seeking to condemn you. This is, ironically, your constant and abiding reminder of your victory through Christ. See it for what it truly is!mTo me this is a life changing thought! Still trying to wrap my brain around it! All we bring to the foot of the Cross is a stinking, rotting body of death. It is He that provides Life and everything you associate with life – skill, talent, energy, compassion, love, initiative, strength. It is He who saves us from this body of death – while we continue to die daily. Any “potential” you see in yourself or someone else is simply a vestige of pre-fall humanity – an image of God marred by generations of rebellion and sin. Instead of being encouraged to “mature”, this innate set of abilities or talents must be crucified along with all of the other more obvious portions of our rotting nature. Be warned, these parts of our flesh, the “healthy”, “beneficial” ones are particularly resistant to crucifixion – they see no need in dying for they have so much to offer. And yet it is so crucial that they be crucified for it is not a partial renewal we require, but a resurrection, and any of these areas left untouched by the Truth of the Gospel (I can’t God can) remain as strongholds from which the enemy and the flesh will launch counterattacks to sabotage victorious Christian living. The Tres Dias ceremony of nailing sins, betrayals, obstacles, etc on the Cross is a good visual of what should happen every day. Bring your flesh, your sin, your weakness, your strength, your abilities, your intelligence – bring it all and crucify it for what it is – a rebellious scoundrel who has rejected his birthright. And then and only then truly live by faith in the Son of God who loves you and gave Himself up for you. This is great fun, letting the mind meander through the myriad of implications of the Gospel message!”
This my friends is what I live for! To see God at work in transforming lives, there is no better enjoyment.
Dear reader, I can’t help but ask. Are you fascinated with the gospel of Jesus Christ? Do you love it? Is it good news to you?
In the following blogs I will continue to share some of my conversations with Jeff and also chronicle other ways that God is at work around me and through me for His praise and glory alone. Stay tuned.
I haven’t written in a while because the Lord has me so busy feeding His sheep in multiple ways and multiple arenas and I am thrilled about that. When I stop and think about all the ministry that is taking place around me and through me I am deeply humbled and grateful to God for this mission that I am pursuing Him on.
I was thinking recently about motives, why we do the things we do. I was thinking about why I run as hard as I do. What is my overriding motive. If I were to be completely vulnerable and honest, what is it that really drives me to live the way I do. So I boiled it all down and if I am completely transparent I would have to say that I am addicted to the joy of seeing God at work in the lives of people. If I’m totally honest, I have been on a 30 year quest, a 30 year investigation to find God’s fingerprints and to catch Him in the act of transforming lives, families, and nations. That is me at my rawest level. I want to be there when God does something. I don’t want to miss out. I want to see Him at work. That is the driving motivation of my life. That is my great joy.
One of the first passages of scripture that I memorized as a young teenager was Psalm 63 and it remains my favorite chapter in the Bible to this day. It starts out, “Oh God, thou art my God. Early will I seek thee. My soul thirsts for thee, my flesh longs for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is, to see thy power and thy glory as I have seen thee in the sanctuary…”
I memorized that passage way back then because that was and is today the cry of my heart, to see His power and His glory. It is a hunger that though often filled as I have seen Him do amazing things for over the last 30 years will never be satisfied (at least in this life) and grows stronger with the indulging. It is a heavenly addiction that I never want to break. I am addicted to the joy of seeing God be Who He is and do what He, and only He, can do… transform.
In the following blogs I will be chronicling some of the ways that God is at work around me and through me for His praise and glory alone. Stay tuned.
I love one on one discipleship. The Lord has sent many people across my path in my life to disciple and to be discipled by and it is a great joy.