What About Now?

If we’re not careful, we can come to think of the Christian life as a religion, or as a set of beliefs we agree on, or about what we’re against and oppose. Christianity is best expressed as the imitation of Christ or as Jesus put it, “Following” Him into a life of complete submission to God lived for the benefit of others.

Following Jesus is always about right now. It’s not about what you did a few years ago. It’s not about what you’re planning on doing some day. It’s about whether or not you are following Jesus right now, in this very moment.

As the scriptures remind us:

“God again set a certain day, calling it ‘Today’” (Hebrews 4:7)

"Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion” (Hebrews 3:15)

“…then chose for yourselves this day whom you will serve…As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:14-16)

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)

Like Paul wrote to us, we must “forget the past” (Philippians 3:13) and press onward to our calling to follow Jesus daily.

It’s why Jesus asks us to pray for “daily bread” (Matt 6:11) and to receive God’s rich Mercies that are “new every morning.” (Lamentations 3:23)

We need to think of our walk with Jesus as a moment-by-moment engagement with Jesus where we are trusting Him with every heartbeat and in time with every breath we breathe.

Are you trusting Jesus as your Lord and Savior at this very moment? Is His Kingdom brand new in your heart? Have you devoted yourself to His service 24/7?

My prayer is that I could always experience this sort of constant conversion where my commitment to Jesus is as new as my latest thought and as immediate as this very moment.

Conversatio morem!

-kg

Just Like Jesus

A friend and I were talking recently about the meaning of Jesus’ words in John 14 when he says, “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” (v.11)

Part of the problem we run into whenever we try to wrap our brains around complicated concepts concerning God is that we use spatial terminology to understand non-spatial realities. So, you might try to imagine placing a ping pong ball inside of a coffee cup but you can’t imagine that – at the same time – the coffee cup could also be inside the ping pong ball. That’s because spatially this is impossible. But God is Spirit and the sense in which Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Him is not something that can be conceptualized in terms of space and time.

The other problem comes because we tend to forget that we need to look at the whole of scripture before we come to any conclusions. Even in the same Gospel of John we can see that Jesus explains in what ways he means that he is in the Father by saying: 

“If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.” (John 14:7-10)

Elsewhere Jesus also affirms that he does nothing under his own power, nor does he teach anything apart from what the Father tells him to:

“These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.” (John 14:24);

“For I do not speak of myself, but from the Father who sent me and commanded me what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that to obey his command is life everlasting. Therefore, whatever I speak is just as the Father tells me to speak." (John 12:49-50)

“Then Jesus answered them and said, "Truly, truly, I say to you; the Son can do nothing of himself, but only does what he sees the Father do. For whatever things he [the Father] does, these are also likewise done by the Son.” (John 5:19)

“Of my own self, I can do nothing. I judge only as I hear; and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the Father who has sent me.” (John 5:30)

“But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I only do exactly as the Father has instructed me to do.” (John 14:31)

So, it’s clear that Jesus didn’t accomplish his perfect life on Earth out of any power of his own. This means we cannot point to Jesus and say, “Of course Jesus could live that sort of selfless life – He’s God!” On the contrary, it was because Jesus emptied himself of his glory and power and took on flesh to become nothing that he was capable of doing what he did:

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:  Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:5-8)

Jesus laid everything down and became – not just a mere human – but a servant among humans. Remember, “...the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28)

Because Jesus laid everything down and emptied himself and allowed the Holy Spirit to fill him and to guide him throughout his life, he was capable of great things. He fully submitted himself to the Father and allowed the Father to speak through him and to work through him.

The whole point is that we can do this too.

“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ the possibility of living and loving and forgiving and sharing and serving like Jesus is more than possible – it’s promised!

Think about how Jesus told us to follow him:

“Then he said to them all: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.’” (Luke 9:23)

We all begin our walk with Jesus by laying everything down and fully submitting our lives to Him. This is how we can be filled with the Holy Spirit and (like Jesus) do only what the Father is doing and speak only what the Father is speaking.

Peter and Paul affirm this principle:

“If any man speaks, let him speak with God's words; if any man ministers, let him do it with the ability that God gives, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever. Amen. “ (1 Peter 4:11)

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. ” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:9-10)

“What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.” (1 Cor 2:12-13)

So, the next time you’re tempted to blow off your calling to be like Jesus because “He was God and I’m not” remember that Jesus let go of his own power in order to show us the truth that the weaker we are the better God can empower us and work through our empty lives to bring glory to His name.

-kg

COME AND DIE

Last night I woke up with this thought in my head: “To know more of Jesus you must be willing to share in his sufferings.”

I realized that this is part of what has held me back the last few months in my spiritual journey. I’ve known this was true and I was unwilling to pay that price.

Jesus made it very clear that anyone who would follow Him and become His disciple must take up his cross and daily die to self. Notice that Jesus doesn’t say that one must be willing to die daily, but that daily death is par for the course.

So far, I think I’ve only been willing to die, just as long as no one actually asks me to lay down and die upon the cross of humiliation, or shame, or embarrassment, or suffering. I’ve stopped short and stood on the door mat labeled “Willing” but not taken the actual step inside the threshold marked “Death”.

Instead of moving forward, I have padded my cross with comfort. I have done what I can to avoid discomfort and pain. I have pretended that it’s possible to follow Jesus without the cross. I have meandered along the narrow path without truly looking to Jesus as my guide.

It doesn’t do any good to look back down the path and ask for credit based on past sacrifices. What was done to get me to this place in the road is meaningless. It’s like trying to move closer to the sun by hopping on one foot. Sure, I’m technically closer to the sun when I’m at the apex of my jump, but the distance isn’t worth measuring. 


I am still stuck where I am on the path. Standing at the crossroads with my cross at my feet. I wonder if I have the strength to lift it again. I doubt that I could even carry it another foot without dropping it again. I just don’t think I have the strength within me to carry on.

As I pondered this truth, I was challenged to fall on my knees and pray. I confessed my weakness to God. I admitted my apathy and my weariness. I asked Him to fill me with courage and strength to embrace the cross in spite of the pain. As I prayed I was reminded of the words spoken by Jackie Pullinger – “The Gospel is always death for the one who brings it, and life for the one who receives it.”

I need this death to self. Without it I cannot experience the resurrection life of Jesus. It is a process, a mechanism, whereby my sinful flesh is consumed and the life of Christ is revealed within me all at once. But it is painful. It is not easy. It is not comfortable. There is a cost and it is not cheap.

Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to a man who found a great treasure in a field. When he found it he covered it up again and ran with joy to sell all that he had in order to buy that field and gain that matchless treasure.

I think I am needing to be reminded of how much greater His Kingdom is worth compared to whatever He might ask me to give up, or to let go of, or to abandon, in order to gain more of Him and His Kingdom. Right now I am mainly concerned with the pain and the discomfort. This is what is real. This is what is right in front of me at this very moment. The experience of death to self.

There is no glory in this. If I step forward, if I embrace this cross, there will be no cheering crowds to spur me onward. If I take up this cross, there will be no immediate reward for my obedience. There is no anesthetic to dull the pain. It is nothing but nails, and blood and dying flesh. This is what it will cost me – everything.

But, what else can I do? Really, how could I possibly turn back now? As hard as it seems, the act of laying down and giving up is more repulsive to me than the prospect of enduring the inevitable humiliation and shame. This life is but a vapor. I know it. My Lord Jesus is waiting for me to choose Him over my own temporary comfort. I need that cross. I need to find it again, and to lift its weight on my shoulders, and to carry it the rest of the way.

Here’s what I know; writing about it is not the same as doing it. Blogging the process isn’t actually participating in the daily process of death to self. I either embrace the cross and endure the pain, or not. Writing about it doesn’t accomplish anything.

So, today, I take up my cross. I hold it close. I await the painful piercing of those nails upon my flesh. I anticipate the death of Keith Giles, the fake, the pretender, the expert, the semi-internet-famous-blogger, author and radio host. He will die. He must die so that Christ may live in me and transform me from within.

As Keith expires, Jesus will breathe. As Keith fades away, Jesus will rise up. As Keith decreases, Jesus will gloriously increase.

“I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:10-11)

-kg 

Treasures from Tozer

The Old Cross and the New
by A.W. Tozer

ALL UNANNOUNCED AND MOSTLY UNDETECTED there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial; the differences, fundamental.

From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life, and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique-a new type of meeting and a new kind of preaching. This new evangelism employs the same language as the old, but its content is not the same and its emphasis not as before.

The old cross would have no truck with the world. For Adam's proud flesh it meant the end of the journey. It carried into effect the sentence imposed by the law of Sinai. The new cross is not opposed to the human race; rather, it is a friendly pal and, if understood aright, it is the source of oceans of good clean fun and innocent enjoyment. It lets Adam live without interference. His life motivation is unchanged; he still lives for his own pleasure, only now he takes delight in singing choruses and watching religious movies instead of singing bawdy songs and drinking hard liquor. The accent is still on enjoyment, though the fun is now on a higher plane morally if not intellectually.

The new cross encourages a new and entirely different evangelistic approach. The evangelist does not demand abnegation of the old life before a new life can be received. He preaches not contrasts but similarities. He seeks to key into public interest by showing that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same thing the world does, only on a higher level. Whatever the sin-mad world happens to be clamoring after at the moment is cleverly shown to be the very thing the gospel offers, only the religious product is better.

The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect. To the self-assertive it says, "Come and assert yourself for Christ." To the egotist it says, "Come and do your boasting in the Lord." To the thrill seeker it says, "Come and enjoy the thrill of Christian fellowship." The Christian message is slanted in the direction of the current vogue in order to make it acceptable to the public.

The philosophy back of this kind of thing may be sincere but its sincerity does not save it from being false. It is false because it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross.

The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said good-by to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing; it slew all of the man, completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more.

The race of Adam is under death sentence. There is no commutation and no escape. God cannot approve any of the fruits of sin, however innocent they may appear or beautiful to the eyes of men. God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again to newness of life.

That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways of God and the ways of men is false to the Bible and cruel to the souls of its hearers. The faith of Christ does not parallel the world, it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die.

We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.

God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death. It stands always on the far side of the cross. Whoever would possess it must pass under the rod. He must repudiate himself and concur in God's just sentence against him.

What does this mean to the individual, the condemned man who would find life in Christ Jesus? How can this theology be translated into life? Simply, he must repent and believe. He must forsake his sins and then go on to forsake himself. Let him cover nothing, defend nothing, excuse nothing. Let him not seek to make terms with God, but let him bow his head before the stroke of God's stern displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die.

Having done this let him gaze with simple trust upon the risen Saviour, and from Him will come life and rebirth and cleansing and power. The cross that ended the earthly life of Jesus now puts an end to the sinner; and the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to a new life along with Christ.

To any who may object to this or count it merely a narrow and private view of truth, let me say God has set His hallmark of approval upon this message from Paul's day to the present. Whether stated in these exact words or not, this has been the content of all preaching that has brought life and power to the world through the centuries. The mystics, the reformers, the revivalists have put their emphasis here, and signs and wonders and mighty operations of the Holy Ghost gave witness to God's approval.

Dare we, the heirs of such a legacy of power, tamper with the truth? Dare we with our stubby pencils erase the lines of the blueprint or alter the pattern shown us in the Mount? May God forbid. Let us preach the old cross and we will know the old power.

-A. W. Tozer from "Man, The Dwelling Place of God"

RE-POST: JACKIE PULLINGER - "THE SIGN OF THE CROSS"

Jackie Pullinger – “The Sign of the Cross”
(Transcribed from “The Fragrance of Justice” Conference tape series)

It seems that there are many of us in the church these days who look at miraculous signs and think, ‘If God would only do them, the whole world would come to Christ’. And they’re hoping that the Holy Spirit will fill a church while we worship, and fill it so full that it will somehow get to the ends of the Earth.

No. If it worked like that, He would not have told us to go! It does not get there by itself. It gets there if you go.

You think Jesus Christ, up there in heaven, couldn’t have done sky writing? Done a few signs and somehow by the power of God we’d all be one?

No.

The miraculous sign upon which all men will be judged was the cross. That is the miraculous sign that the world is waiting for, through us.

There’s this terrible song that we sing called “Lord Let Your Glory Fall”. I don’t know if you sing it, but I get real upset when we sing this song.

I can’t sing that song, especially when they sing it all sweet. You know what the Glory of God is? The Son of God, crushed, voluntarily.

“The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life, only to take it up again.”- John 10:17.

God gives us this same privilege. “Anyone who would follow me must take up his cross, daily.”- Luke 9:23

See? That’s it!

I don’t think the Glory of God is going to get to the ends of the Earth when we sing in church. I mean, it’s not a bad thing to do, to praise His name and bless His heart. But that’s not how the Gospel gets to the Nations.

You see, it isn’t “just” a miraculous sign. The miraculous sign comes through a man.

I think the world has yet to see this. The world has yet to see Christians laying down their lives. They’re singing in church for God to do it again.

I think we’re so rude to God. I mean, He gave us His son, He gave us His Holy Spirit and we say, ‘More, Lord’!

What more can He give? He gave everything, and we say ‘More Lord’?

We say, ‘We need more before we go’. No! No! We haven’t used hardly any of what He’s given us yet. And if you go and it’s quickly used up, great! Because as you use it up you get more, and you use it up, and you get more. That’s how it works!

We haven’t seen hardly any of the signs and wonders that we’re supposed to see yet. Hardly any.

Because we think that the sign and the wonder is instead of the Cross. But the sign and the wonder is “in” the cross.

Then, when we understand the Cross, which is His heart, all the other signs and wonders are the expression of His heart. They are not demonstrations of His power, merely. They’re expressions of His heart.

You know that this was Jesus’ temptation, right at the beginning of His ministry, and at the end, to have it all without the Cross.

For any of you, young people, if you will minister with the poor, everything’s backwards. You spend a year on these people, and then they rob you of your money. In this ministry, you go backwards. God is faithful, of course, they all come off drugs by the power of the Holy Spirit, but then many of them turn back.

I was sharing this with a church in Taiwan and the pastor came up to me afterwards and said, ‘How can this be? We’ve never heard this teaching before.’ And I said, ‘It’s the way Jesus did it.’

Look at Him. At the end of three years, what’s He got to show? I mean, he’s had some great Glory meetings and some people got healed, but what’s He got at the end?
Eleven in disarray and one suicide. His group hasn’t multiplied even.

Not until Peter knows the Grace of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s that Rock the Church is built on; a weak, forgiven Peter knowing the Grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so few yet in this world have used this explosive mixture of the compassion of the Lord with a broken heart, and the power of the Spirit.

It’s what the world waits for.

**
Transcribed from Tape 4 in the conference tape set entitled “The Fragrance Of Justice”; VMG, 2005