It’s Rising Up!
It’s rising up…
Have you ever had one of those moments in life where you realized you weren’t as good at something as you thought you were? Well, back in August I wrote my last blog post (since removed) and not only was it not received well… it wasn’t written or handled well. For those involved, if you read this, I do apologize. However, this blog post is going to be on the same topic but it’s going to hopefully shed some light on what I see God doing in His Church in a more approachable way.
There was something else I found out I wasn’t so good at just last weekend. I got the immense privilege to attend Passion 2011 where 22,000 college students and leaders came together to worship, give, learn, and encourage all for the name of Jesus. But while I was there I got to hear from Francis Chan and the one thing that stuck out to me was when he set up this scale on stage. This scale is more of a “scale of justice” where it balances out if the two items in question are of equal weight. Francis said to put your life on one side and scripture on the other and think about whether they really balance out. That’s when it hit me: I’m not good at living in line with scripture. I always said I believe in it and I follow it but there was one huge part that, even though I may have believed it, I certainly did not live it out. Perhaps you might relate with me here… I had to ask myself “do I really live as if hell is real?” Keep following me here… I believed hell was real but my actions did not back that up.
See, if I actually lived as if hell is real (and scripture is very clear that it is) there would be much more responsibility in my own life and there would be much more urgency in my actions and interactions with others. If I believe that people who do not know Jesus are going to hell and I have a way of showing them (not just impersonally throwing a tract at them) then why am I not doing it? Suddenly I look at my life and I see so much waste. Why am I putting so much energy into things that don’t matter? Do you see this in your own life? As I write this I’m worried this imagery is not going to make sense but I hope and pray that it does.
Now one can look at that scale example again and easily see how scripture can outweigh our lives but have you ever thought that perhaps we take things out of scripture through our actions to make it weigh less and balance it out with our lives? That’s what I did in the area of “hell.” Sometimes our actions show what we really believe in and if we only focus on the parts that make us feel happy or that we know any person with the ability to feel will accept we end up missing the whole picture.
If you’re like me then you probably started thinking about what it would look like if everyone lived this way. That is, living in a way that we constantly examine our lives through the lens of scripture. (Because doing it once isn’t enough since we are prone to sin and failure). Well, if everyone lived this way, and I’m assuming you feel this way too if you’re still reading this, the Church would look radically different. Because if lives are starting to look more like Jesus then the Church will start to look more like Jesus. You know that the Church is people and has absolutely nothing to do with buildings and denominations. So if the people start to look more like Jesus then the world might start to see Jesus more instead of this overly political, divided group of factions. Gone will be the days of churches lifting up their superstar pastor or worship leader because they will be lifting up the name of Jesus. Gone will be the days where people associate Christians as right-winged conservatives who hate abortion, hate homosexuals, and are extremely hypocritical because they will know what we stand for and not what we stand against. We will stand for Jesus. We will hate sin as scripture describes, which includes abortion and homosexuality, but we will love the sinner, which includes those who had an abortion or have struggled with homosexuality.
The Church (that’s you, if you’re a believer, and me) must return to scripture as its roots and we must use it to examine our lives so that the world sees Jesus through our words and actions. That is why Jesus set up His Church… to be His hands and feet to this broken world spreading the Good News to the farthest ends of the earth and baptizing people until He returns! Someone was bold enough to share the Gospel with you and give you the best relationship you’ll ever have… now there is someone out there waiting to hear it from you.
There is so much Jesus is doing to refine His Church right now. I started seeing it a year ago, a few of my close brothers in Christ are seeing it, and at Passion 2011 we definitely saw it. There is so much more I could say on this topic and there will be more blog posts to follow but I want you to realize, as I just learned this past weekend, the starting point is you and me: individuals willing to change no matter how hard it might be. The problem starts with us and, if we change, it will end with us.
Scale of Justice
