The Unrelenting Wave Is Rising

Today I invite you to become a member of a subversive group of social media renegades whose mission is to spread the audacious joy of Christ's heart and to change the tone and tenor of the internet to reflect His new Kingdom reality, one post at a time.

Our strategy will be to relentlessly post quotes, articles, videos and memes that unapologetically declare that Christ's message of love, peace and forgiveness is remaking the world - one person at a time, from the inside out - whether we like it or not.

We will not stop to argue with the naysayers. We will respond only with more love, more joy, more forgiveness and more endless declarations of the Gospel of Peace that inevitably transforms everyone it touches.

As our numbers increase [and they will increase] the algorithms of Facebook will have to be rewritten to accommodate our unstoppable tsunami wave of agape.

I'm not going to ask who is with me. I'm just going to move forward and step into this movement that is already in motion.

This little kingdom will also fall and all will bow down to the Lamb who was slain to the Glory of God.

Join me now, or wait and be swept up into the rip tide later. It makes no difference.

His Kingdom is here. It is advancing. We will overcome.

Selah.

Obedient Lovers of Jesus

 

Jesus equated love with obedience:

“If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.  I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” [John 15:10-12]

But the idea of loving others can be challenging. Especially when it comes to loving our enemies.

 

I've been in numerous debates in the last few days. Mostly with Christians who want to wiggle out of Jesus' command to love our enemies. We want to redefine "Love" or look for different meanings of the word "Kill", or make ammendments for self-defense.

 

Then, quite often, Christians will bring up the Holocaust or the Nazi's in WW2 and ask, "Why didn't non-violence stop Hitler? 

Here's something almost no one realizes: The Nazi's had no way of dealing with those who responded with non-violent resistance.

“B.H. Liddell-Hart, widely acknowledged as the foremost military writer of our times, discovered in his interrogation of Nazi generals after World War II that they had little trouble dealing with violent resistance except in mountainous areas of Russia and the Balkins, or where advancing armies were close. But they expressed complete inability to cope with nonviolence as practiced in Denmark, Holland, Norway, and, to a lesser extent, in France and Belgium.

“’They were experts in violence, and had been trained to cope with opponents who used that method. But other forms of resistance baffled them. They were relieved when nonviolence was mixed with guerilla operations, which made it easier to combine suppressive action against both at the same time.’

“The generals found friendly noncompliance more frustrating than any other form of resistance, and had no effective means to counter it. ‘If practiced with a cheerful smile and an air of well-meaning mistake, due to incomprehension or clumsiness, it becomes even more baffling…. This subtle kind of resistance cannot really be dealt with in terms of force: indeed, nothing can deal with it. There is really no answer to such go-slow tactics.”  - Excerpt from "Engaging the Powers" by Walter Wink.

 

So, we can't point to a conflict which was initiated, and escalated, by those who believe in violence as an example of how non-violence couldn't stop it. Especially when we can see that non-violence does work - and did work - in situations where it was actually put into practice. [And there are several examples of how non-violence worked during WW2, and in other conflicts worldwide, from Liberia to India and even in the good ole' USA].

 

But, again, please keep in mind that Christian non-violence is not "doing nothing". It involves trusting Jesus for wisdom, strength, protection and grace in the midst of suffering, oppression and hate.

The goal is not to become door mats. The goal is to become ambassadors of Christ and to demonstrate - as He did - the abounding, endless, audacious love of God to those who have never experienced it as we have.

 

The hope is that our enemies will be transformed by the surprising love of Christ when we return blessings instead of curses, and love instead of hate.

 

Many have been completely transformed by this unexpected outpouring of love in response to acts of violence. Early Christian history - the first 300 years especially - is full of examples of exactly this kind of radical love which transforms the purveyors of violence.

 

When it works this way, it's beautiful. No weapon can stop it. No aggression can overcome it. Light truly does push back the darkness. Love really does overwhelm hate.

But, sometimes it doesn't always result in repentance and transformation. And in those cases, we may die. But if we die, then we die, and in that way we "share in the sufferings of Christ". What greater honor can there be than to follow Jesus all the way to our death?

I don't know about you, but I would rather die because I was putting the commands of Jesus into practice than to kill another person because my Government said so.

For a follower of Jesus, death is where we begin our journey with Him:

 

"For we died and our lives are now hidden with Christ in God." [Col. 3:3]
"If anyone would follow me let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me." -Jesus

Self-preservation is not our goal. Obedience unto death to the Lord of Life and the Prince of Peace is.

Do we trust Jesus to take care of us as we put His commands into practice? And if we suffer for doing good, that's what it's all about, isn't it?

 

“But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” [1 Peter 2:20-21]

Yes, non-violence quite often does work, when it is put into practice by obedient disciples of Jesus who are following His example of humility and love.

And even if it doesn't end with our lives being spared, that's not the point. The purpose is to put on display the extravagant love of Jesus that has filled us, and the whole earth.

 

This is the love that can change the human heart and transform our community, our nation and our world - one person at a time.

 

But it will only work if we put the commands of Jesus into practice.

 

"A new command I give you: Love one another as I have loved you." - Jesus

 

How has Jesus loved you? This is how you should love others - yes, even your enemies.

 

"If you only love those who love you, what credit is that to you?" - Jesus

 

Are we really following Jesus, or do we just "believe in" Him?

 

If we really love Jesus, according to Him, we will obey His commands.

 

Jesus makes it very clear: "Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you" [Luke 6:27].

 

I would never kill someone I loved. Therefore, we cannot kill our enemies if we hope to be obedient disciples of Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

 

"Now these three remain: Faith, Hope and Love. And the greatest of these is Love". [1 Cor. 13]

 

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[Special Thanks to Travis Glenn Blankenship for the Walter Wink reference]

OUR ONLY HOPE

Once again our daily news carries the headline that more unarmed black people have been killed. This time not by racist police officers, but by an armed white supremacist who sat for an hour and listened to a Bible Study before pulling out his weapon to gun down nine innocent people.

It hardly matters whether these dear people were killed by a white cop, or by an angry white man. They are still dead.

It really doesn't matter how they were killed, by a handgun, or a rifle.
They were still murdered.

It doesn't even matter where they were killed, in a church, or a park, or a department store.
They are all still gone.

What does matter is that, in our nation, this sort of thing still happens on a regular basis.

What does matter is that it will continue to happen, more and more, unless we decide to do something about it.

No doubt some will use this as an opportunity to push for stricter gun regulations.

Others will use this to encourage more open dialog between people of different races and backgrounds.

Still others will exploit this tragedy to raise money for their campaign, or advance their agenda, or to demonize their opposition.

But make no mistake here, none of those things will improve the situation.

None of those responses - even if they are successful - will do anything more than make it harder to kill someone you hate with a particular brand of weapon.

Here's what will make a difference: The Gospel.

Only Jesus can transform us from the inside out.

Only Jesus can teach us the power of love over hate.

What should we do about the horrible news today?

We should pray.
We should love.
We should tell others that there's only one hope for our nation.

His name is Jesus.

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Love Unlimited

Love is the greatest command. Jesus tells us that if we focus on loving God and loving one another, we’ll be fulfilling the Law of God.

He also tells us that people will know that we are his disciples if we love one another as he has loved us.

And then Jesus even goes so far as to suggest that we should not only love those who are lovable, and those who love us back, but we should go beyond this to love even those who hate us, and those we do not even like.

So, in essence, Jesus expects us to become love experts. Love should be our expertise. Love should be our brand. Love should be our practice and our specialty.

How do we do this? By first soaking up the fantastic, unmerited love of Jesus like dry sponges who are desperately thirsty for the love of God. Very quickly we’ll find ourselves so saturated with the extravagant love of Jesus that we can’t hold it all inside. We’ll soon find ourselves gushing this love out of every pore of our being. Indiscriminately those around us will become drenched in this same intoxicating nectar of God’s love and so it will begin to spread to everyone around us.

Granted, this takes time to learn and to practice. We get a taste of His love and we walk away. We get distracted by other things and we forget about His love for a while. Then hard times come, tragedy strikes, disappointments arise. We find ourselves thirsty again for His amazing love. He fills us again and we dance in the downpour of His love, lingering a little longer than before, but eventually we drift away again following this dream, or chasing that light in the distance.

Soon enough we realize that none of that was even half as satisfying as the love that Jesus immersed us in and we find our way back to Him, diving deeper into that boundless ocean of love than we ever thought possible.

His love never fails us. His love never ends. His love transforms us. His love makes us – and all things – new again.

But His love is also dangerous, and unpredictable, and challenging, and sometimes even uncomfortable for us. Even so, there is nothing like Jesus and there is nothing like His unconditional love for us – and for everyone around us.

The beautiful thing is when the love that Jesus has for me begins to change my heart. Suddenly I see people the way He sees them. His heart for them becomes my heart for them. I begin to move from theological agreement with His command to love and step into the fullness of loving Him and loving others because I am unable to do anything else.

He loves me. He loves you. He loves everyone I have ever met, or will ever know.

Now, I love because Jesus does.

That means:

I love homosexual people because Jesus loves them.

I love Muslims because Jesus loves them.

I love Liberals and Republicans because Jesus loves them.

I love racists because Jesus loves them.

I love Obama because Jesus loves him.

I love Rush Limbaugh because Jesus loves him.

I love Bill Maher because Jesus loves him.

I love Hilary Clinton because Jesus loves her.

I love Sean Hannity because Jesus loves him.

I love abortionists because Jesus loves them.

I love the Taliban because Jesus loves them.

I love Buddhists because Jesus loves them.

I love suicide bombers because Jesus loves them.

I love Atheists because Jesus loves them.

I love Calvinists because Jesus loves them.

I love Dispensationalists because Jesus loves them.

I love Zionists because Jesus loves them.

I love Palestinians because Jesus loves them.

I love ______ because Jesus loves ______.

“For God so loved everyone in the world that He gave His only son, so that anyone who puts their hope and trust in His son will have everlasting life.” – Jesus (Jn. 3:16)

There is no greater force in the Universe than the love of God. This same love has been poured out to us and given away freely to anyone and everyone who is hungry and thirsty for it.

That's Good News. Let's spread it around.

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A Force More Powerful

When I was nine years old my Father handed me something dangerous. “It’s uranium,” he said. “Just touching it will transform you, and if you know how to use it properly, it has the power to create an explosion so powerful it could be seen from space.”

This is a metaphor.

My Father in this scenario is my Heavenly Father. The uranium he gave me is “Agape” and it not only has the power to transform us due to prolonged contact, but it can also create an explosion of change that has the potential to transform every human life on this planet – if we know how to use it properly.

I’ve been captivated lately by this image of the Love of Christ as an awesome, unlimited power that has been handed down to us by the Creator of the Universe.

Much like handing a toddler a nuclear warhead capable of transforming the landscape in the blink of an eye, Jesus has entrusted every one of us with the greatest force in the universe ever imagined: Agape Love. A love which has the power - not to destroy a city - but to transform and renew all humanity from within.

If you have experienced the inexpressible power of this love, you know what I’m talking about. It disarms you. It changes you from within. It fills your heart with unspeakable joy, and impossible hope, and complete faith that the impossible is not only possible but extremely likely.

You and I – as disciples of Jesus – have been handed the most astounding force of change ever devised. We have been changed by it ourselves, and the more we are exposed to it, the more we are changed daily into new creatures with new minds, and new hearts.

This same force within us has the power to change the world. In fact, it is intended to do so. It was designed by the One who spoke the Universe into existence to do just that.

This love of Christ has the power to transform the hearts and renew the minds and restore the souls of every person we come into contact with today. No matter who they are: Atheists, Rapists, Murderers, Drug Addicts, Prostitutes, LGBTs, Muslims, Baptists, Democrats, Republicans, Nazis, ISIS, Terrorists, Lawyers, Professors, and on, and on.

Truthfully, there is no one who is immune to the power of this love. Some may resist it. They may deny it. They may run from it in fear. But the power of the love of Christ to soften the heart and renew the mind, and transform the soul, is irresistible.

We are living proof. The more we are exposed to this love, the more we are changed. The more we are changed, the more others around us experience that love, and the cycle continues.

If you wield a force as powerful as Agape Love, I have to ask what you would want with a gun, or a knife? Jesus has entrusted us with a weapon that is mighty beyond belief. It has the power to demolish strongholds and turn murderers into ministers, abusers into healers, terrorists into ambassadors of peace – even persecutors into Apostles of Christ.

That same Apostle told us that the love of Christ was powerful beyond our imaginations. He prayed that we would have the “power to grasp how high, and wide, and long, and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge  - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3:18-19)

So, take hold of that volatile, dangerous power today. Immerse yourself in it. Let it permeate your being.

Let it transform you into a living beacon of His audacious, awesome, astounding love.

Detonate this power indiscriminately wherever you go. Let it flow through your mouth, your hands, your heart, your mind. Let it spill over the lonely, the broken, the outcast, and the hopeless around you.

Let this love change you, and then let it transform the world around you.

"Love’em all. Let God sort’em out."

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FURTHER READING:
"Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well." (1 Thess. 2:8)

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" (2 Cor. 5:17)

"He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." (Rev. 21:5)

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." (1 Cor. 13:13)

We Who Have Been Transformed

We who have been transformed are without excuse.


You opened the eyes of the blind.
Who are we to sing the songs of darkness?


You opened the door to the Kingdom.
Who are we to defend the way of the world?


You were beaten and tortured and killed.
Who are we to side with the aggressor?

You were born into poverty and had no place to lay your head.
Who are we to justify sending the poor away hungry?

You were forced to flee a violent dictator's sword.
Who are we to turn our backs on immigrant children?

Your mother carried the shame of an unexpected pregnancy.
Who are we to shame the unwed mothers?
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.


Our hardened hearts were transformed by your irresistible love.

Who are we to condemn sinners?

Our darkness was changed into light.

Who are we to say there is no hope for others?

Our violent souls were calmed by your voice.

Who are we to stand with those who do violence?

Your Kingdom subverted the glorification of power and redefined the meaning of authority.

Who are we to return to the worldly system of hierarchy and domination of others?

Now, let the transformed rise up to heal the wounded.
Let those who have been made new follow the way of the cross.

Let every creature that has been made new stand with the oppressed and the homeless and the orphan and the voiceless.

Let every child of the King point out the path to your everlasting peace.

Let those who hear your voice kneel down to wash the feet of our enemies.

Let those who follow the Prince of Peace lay down their weapons and fall to their knees.

Let those who are called by your name humble themselves and seek your face and turn from their wicked ways.


Now, let those who have received so great a mercy, extend that same mercy to everyone else.

We who have been transformed are without excuse.


We who have been made new are held to a higher standard.

Now, let the redeemed of the Lord please say so.

Please. Say so.

And do so.

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The Incarnational Gospel

One aspect of the Incarnation which fascinates me is how God, in human flesh, manifested Himself as a common, simple person born into humble circumstances who traveled the countryside telling stories.

Jesus was a storyteller. He was a creative personality. His stories were allegorical snapshots of what life inside the Kingdom of God was like.

Only one of his stories, which he called “Parables”, was ever actually explained to his disciples. All the rest he left up to interpretation and discovery.

The Parables of Jesus provoked thought and invited those who were curious to explore for themselves what the Kingdom of God was really all about. By internalizing the search for Truth contained in his stories, Jesus entrusted the human mind with the task of working it out in due time.

Jesus was comfortable with loose ends. He didn’t feel any anxiety over how many understood the parable. He knew that those who were truly hungry for real spiritual sustenance would discover what they were craving after in their own time.

There was an organic quality to the ministry and teaching of Jesus that appeals to me in ways that are deeper than I can even comprehend at a conscious level. He had ideas that were subversive to the status quo of the culture and he transmitted the code of this social rebellion through simple stories about farmers, widows, travelers, sons, fathers, and fields.

Jesus was comfortable with unanswered questions. In fact, I think that many of us who call ourselves his followers could learn something from adopting his style of asking questions and telling stories without getting hung up on the answers.

Too often we in the Church are too quick to provide answers to questions we’ve never been asked. That is a serious problem, in my mind. It paints us as people who are more concerned about results than we are about other human beings. We provide answers without taking the time to really listen to the questions being asked. Often we are answering the wrong questions.

For example, no one cares about your answer to spiritual poverty if you have yet to address the very real physical poverty all around you. When you show an indifference to the very real poverty that is easily detectable with the naked eye, it doesn’t paint you as someone who is particularly skilled at relieving poverty. Your poverty-relieving skills come into serious doubt.

Those who have yet to embrace Christ are skeptical of the slogan- “Jesus Loves You” when those who claim to be transformed by this love look and act just like everyone else.

It matters, then, who we are and what we do. Our reputation has become soiled. This is what makes the pursuit of personal Holiness and ethical behavior essential to the Christian life. Not just for our own personal need for sanctification, to be transformed into the image of Christ, but for the purpose of demonstrating that Jesus does indeed change lives and make us a new creation.

It shouldn’t take faith to believe that Jesus has the power to set us free. It should not take faith to accept that Jesus is capable of making us into better fathers and mothers and employees and citizens.

Our lives should serve as proof that Jesus is alive and transformation is possible.

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LOVE IS OUR (NEW) NATURE

"For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." - 1 Peter 3:12

If you believe in Jesus, you believe in the power of love to redeem. If you believe in Jesus, you are a living example of how love can change the human heart.

How then can we, as followers of Jesus, fail to respond to those who are bound by evil with love, compassion and mercy? Are we surprised that they are sinful? Does it seem strange that those who have not tasted of God’s love should lack evidence of it in their lives? Hardly. Yet, when we respond to hate with more hate, we ourselves are the ones who are acting out of character. The unbeliever who curses us or insults us is behaving exactly as he should. He is being true to his nature.

As it says in Romans 8:7-8, "The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God."

However, you and I are no longer alive to the flesh or to sin. We are transformed into the image of Christ by the indwelling Spirit of God.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" – 2 Corinthians 5:17

In fact, if we are truly redeemed by Christ – if His Holy Spirit is living in us daily – then we shouldn’t even have to think about how to love our enemies, or even if we should or not. It should be our reasonable response to love those who hate us and to bless those who curse us.

"For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5:20

When Jesus uttered these words there was no doubt a collective sigh of defeat from the crowd. How could anyone hope to be more righteous than the Pharisees? They were without equal in Jewish society as the defenders of the faith and keepers of the Law of Moses. No one outside of that group would ever have dared to proclaim that they were more righteous than any Pharisee. It would seem then that any hope of entering the Kingdom of God was extinguished from the beginning. “Who then, can be saved?”

What Jesus is pointing out here is that, even the righteousness of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law is not enough. If the standard of righteousness required exceeds that of those professional law-keepers, then even they will be left outside of the Kingdom. Maybe what Jesus is suggesting is that keeping the law isn’t the right way to enter the Kingdom. Perhaps that door is locked? Or maybe that door was never a door at all.

I think that Jesus is trying to suggest that, unlike the Pharisees whose righteousness was only an outward display of false humility and oppressive legalism, our real hope for entering the Kingdom of God is found through transformation. Later on in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says,

"Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit." – Matthew 7:17-18

Translation: It’s not about doing stuff. It’s about transformation.

The Pharisees had it backwards. They were attempting to produce good fruit in their lives by doing good things. Jesus uses the metaphor of fruit trees to point out that the kind of tree you are (your nature) determines the kind of fruit you produce (your actions).

One way to express this new perspective is to say, “To produce good fruit, first become a good tree. Good trees produce good fruit naturally.” The point Jesus is trying to make is that we are all “bad trees” and unless we are transformed from within, we will never become “good trees” capable of producing good fruit.

Our calling is to allow Jesus to transform us into His image so that we can model a righteousness that is a natural expression of our new nature.

My version of this idea is expressed in the phrase: “Swimming won’t make you a fish. But if you are a fish, you will swim.”

When we attempt to become righteous by doing good works, we miss the point. But, when we let go of our own effort and surrender ourselves to His indwelling Spirit, we allow Jesus to live in us and through us. When this happens, he empowers us to love the unlovable and serve others in His strength.

Of course, we must daily do battle with our own flesh – our own sinful nature – in order to allow the life of Christ to increase in us. This is what Jesus means when he says that those who desire to follow Him must take up their cross (the instrument of their own death) each and every day. Therefore, the beautiful thing about being humiliated by people who hate us is that it fuels our death to self. Insults are like the hammer pounding down on the nails in our hands. Spiteful actions are like a crown of thorns being pressed into our prideful brow. Persecution is like a spear being thrust into our soft, selfish flesh.

If we were dead to sin, these actions wouldn’t hurt us so much. If our pride wasn’t so sensitive, being disrespected wouldn’t wound us so deeply. The fact that we are insulted when someone treats us like a servant betrays the fact that we are not already humble enough to actually serve them.

So, laying down our lives for others is what we are called to do. Those who seek to find their lives lose them. Those who lose their lives for the sake of Christ, discover what true life is really all about.

If you believe in Jesus, you cannot put your faith in hate. You cannot put your trust in anger. You cannot. Your only hope is Christ. Your only salvation is through love. His love has changed your heart, and it can change the hearts of others too. When you are persecuted, insulted, and humiliated you are presented with an opportunity to share with Christ in His sufferings. You have been given a gift from God when this happens. It’s a gift-wrapped hammer and a set of nails. If you allow Him to, He will fill you with His love for those who mistreat you. He will help you to put to death your pride and your love of self. He will teach you how to serve others, even when they are doing their best to hate you.

This is what it means to follow Christ.

Conversatio Morem! Death to the Status Quo of Me!

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