Questioning Jesus?

A couple of weeks ago I was thinking of Holy Week when a thought came to my mind. As I thought about Jesus going into Jerusalem and the things He did leading up to His death and resurrection, I thought “what if Jesus came to my city today?” As I remembered all the things He said and did in Jerusalem that week, I thought, “what would He say and do if He came to our cities next week?”

Now, as we all reflect on the Lord’s sacrifice this week, I wanted to ask you the same question: What if Jesus came to your city tomorrow? What would He do? Where would He go? What would He say? As we ask ourselves these questions, they lead to some other important questions to ponder…Where would you be? How would you react? What would you do?

So, I wanted to take us on a journey of the imagination. I want to look at 4 things that took place on that week nearly two thousand years ago and wonder what it would look like if it happened to us today…

Jesus rides into town…

Matthew chapter 21 sets the scene for us. It tells us that Jesus entered the town on a donkey with His disciples walking next to Him as crowds waived palm branches and shouted “Hosanna in the highest.” He could have rode in on a mighty steed but no a lowly donkey would do. He could have been surrounded by thousands of Angels, but no some lowly fisherman would do. And the crowds although seemed like they were worshiping Him actually just wanted to use Him for their own benefit. Some wanted Him to change their life circumstances, some saw Him as a way to get rich and some saw Him as a political revolutionary. That is why in a few short days they would turn on Him when He didn’t deliver what they wanted of Him. And no doubt, amongst the crowd were those spiritual elitists, the Pharisees. They were not shouting “Hosanna”, instead they were questioning Jesus’ authority, credentials and authority. They saw Him as a threat to their way of life.

So, what if this scene played out in our world? What if Jesus rode into your city?

What kind of car would He come it? Would He come in a limo, a Mercedes or maybe a city bus?

And who would be with Him? World leaders?  The best-selling Christian authors and pastors? Would they be dressed in suits or their Sunday best?

Finally, what would the crowd say or do? First of all, would there even be a crowd? Would it even make the nightly news? And what would the crowd say? Would they be worshipping or just as the 1^st century crowd, and only see Jesus as a means to their desires? Would they be expecting Jesus to change their government? And most importantly, what would you be thinking or saying? Would you question His credentials? Would you question where He went to Bible college or Seminary? Would you say He isn’t the most dynamic preacher? Would you see Him as a threat to your way of life?

Jesus goes to the Temple…

Once Jesus enters the city, He goes to the temple. He drives out the money-changers and the merchants. He calls out against those spiritual elitists and rebukes them. Usually that is all that we remember from that scene but He does other things too. The Bible says that the lame and blind came to Him at the Temple and He healed them.

So, what would happen if Jesus decided to visit your church next week?

What would His reaction be? Would He find things that He needs to drive out? Where does He need to cleanse your church? What would He say to your church? How has your church distorted the house of God? But at the same time, who would He heal? Who would be the ones who come to Him in His house and find healing? Who are the lame and blind of our society? In what areas does your church need to repent and find forgiveness in Jesus?

Jesus prays for His disciples…

Later on during the week, in one of the greatest discourses in scripture, Jesus prays for His disciples. Jesus knows what’s coming. He knows their fears and anxieties. He knows where they lack strength and faith. So He prays for them.

What would Jesus’ prayer for you sound like? What would He pray for you?

What would it be like to hear Jesus pray over you? To hear Him address your greatest fears? To hear Him address your failures? What would His prayer be for all of us in this culture? What are the things He would warn us against? What are the things He would pray for us to stand against? What do you need to hear Jesus say to you?

Jesus resurrects from the grave?

The last event we will look at is fittingly His resurrection. The disciples had watched Him die on a cross just three days earlier. They watched as their hopes and dreams faded away that Friday night. They felt the weight of the silence on Saturday. But, something amazing happened. They saw the power of God in a resurrected Jesus on Sunday….and that changed EVERYTHING! These lowly, fearful, disappointed fishermen went on to change the world because they saw and believed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So, what if Jesus appeared to you on Easter morning?

How would it impact you if Jesus came to you in all your shortcoming, disappointments, fears and failures and allowed you to feel His scars? How would it change your life hearing Jesus tell you that you too have power? Would it change everything for you as it did for the disciples? Would you go out and live completely for Him? Would you not worry or care about anything that may come against you? Would people write books about you? Would the book of Acts have another chapter added to it because of your acts? Would you be forever changed and would the world be forever changed?

As we prepare ourselves for Easter, it is easy for us to become disconnected. In fact, for a lot of Christians, Easter becomes more about unbelievers than for believers. It also becomes easy to think about the past. And although the death, burial and resurrection, which took place some two thousand years ago, is the greatest event in the history of the world, it is not just about the past. I believe we need to celebrate Holy Week and Easter Sunday not just for what God did but for what He is doing.

Although the journey that we just took may have seemed hypothetical, it in fact is not. You see, just as Jesus entered Jerusalem, He has also entered into each one of our hearts. Just as He cleansed the temple, He has cleansed our temples of all sin and is continually restoring us. Just as He prayed over His disciples, He is constantly with us and praying for us. And finally, we have all witnessed the power of His resurrection in each of our lives as we are transformed into His image. The only question left is how will we respond?

Selling A Mirage

The Gospel is about transformation. It is about how God became Sin on a cross which changed everything. And when people choose to accept Jesus' work on the cross and surrender to Him, then transformation is set into motion. Its all about transformation. We go from dark to light. Be become born again or born from above. We go from unsaved to saved. We go from being orphans to being adopted. We go from death to life. It is all about transformation. But it doesn't stop there. Our entire Christian lives are about transformation. In the gospels we read of these messed up, unpolished, rough people and he transforms them into kind, compassionate, loving people who became the leaders of the most powerful movement in the history of the world.

And for us that same transformation is the goal. To actually be transformed into the likeness of Christ. Jesus in his call to all disciples everywhere in Matthew 4:19 says that when you follow him something amazing will happen...he will change you. You will change. You will become something else. In the book of Corinthians, Paul says that the Christian life is about this transformation where the old is gone and the new has come. That you will become something new. You will be transformed. The gospel is about transformation.

Now this is where we come in. With God you always have an option. To accept him or not and here you have a choice to be transformed or not. Transformation can only happen through surrendering to the Holy Spirit. It's more than just reading our Bibles everyday. More than just going to church every week or going to a small group or serving. It is an active and intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit of God which brings about transformation. That means we have to surrender to the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We have to spend time with Him. We have to spend energy to get to know Him. We have to seek Him continually. The problem is that it is much easier to keep a list of do' and don't or a religion than to actively seek an intimate relationship. That is why there are so many Christians who go to church every week, read their Bible everyday, go to a small group and serve at church faithfully, yet they are just as mean, greedy, wealth seeking, cold and unloving as they were the day they accepted Jesus into their lives. And this kind of Christianity is a huge blow to the movement that Jesus is all about. Jesus is all about transformation. So when we share the gospel with people, we are essentially sharing them a gospel of transformation. But the key is not just he gospel that we are sharing it is also the gospel we are living. That is the gospel most people see. And if are not transforming, if we as followers of Christ are not actually changing into better people from the inside out then we are detrimental to Jesus' movement because and here is the key....."PEOPLE WILL NOT ACCEPT A GOSPEL OF TRANSFORMATION FROM UNTRANSFORMED PEOPLE!"

Power Boost

I think all of us have good plans for our lives. We want to be good people and do amazing things but somewhere along the journey of life, we come to a point where we feel powerless to actually do the things we want to do and become the people we want to be. This is not anything new. In fact, it seems to be the human condition from the beginning of time. There have always been people who wanted good things however they lacked the power. This had been the norm throughout history...UNTIL about two thousand years ago there was a community of people. They were followers of a certain Rabbi named Jesus. This Jesus, would walk around telling this community they kind of people they can be and the good things they can accomplish. For about 3 years they lived, ate, slept and did life together. Everything was going well for this community until one day the unthinkable happened. Their Rabbi was arrested. He was beaten. And finally he was crucified on a cross and laid in a tomb.

This community was shattered. They once again came to the conclusion that they lacked the power to be the people they wanted to be. They even stopped pursuing the life they had been working towards the last 3 years and went back to their old way of life. THEN something incredible happened. These people started to live differently. They started to live differently. They had passion and confidence. When people asked what had changed they had an amazing answer. These people believed that their Rabbi had actually been raised from the dead. And not only that, they believed that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead actually lived within them. They actually believed that! And they started living differently. They actually believed that they now had the power to live the lives and become the people they wanted to be. And guess what? They did it. They actually lived it out! And in the process they changed the course of human history.

My question is simple. Today there are many more people who claim to have the same spirit within them that this community did. How come we are not having the same impact as they did? Could it be that we don't actually believe it like they did? Could it be that we may read it in our Bibles and hear it in sermons but we don't really believe? And here is the real question, what if we started to believe it? What if we started to actually believe we had the same power that raised Jesus from the dead living inside of us? What if we actually believed Jesus when he said that we will do greater things then he did because of this power? What would happen to our families? What would happen to our neighborhoods? What about our schools? Our churches? Our cities? Our states? Our countries? Our World?

Too Late

I am just about to go to a friend's funeral and I was thinking about the things I would say to him if I could talk to him one more time. Bobby died of a sudden heart-attack last week. I found out about it on Tuesday morning and was obviously shocked. What makes it even more shocking to me was that we were supposed to have lunch on Thursday of last week. I had been meeting with Bobby once a week for the last 9 months in a Leadership class and we were getting together because he had graduated from the class a month ago and we just wanted to catch up. I had thought about the meeting with Bobby. At the meeting, I was going to tell him how proud I was of him graduating and sticking with the class. I was going to encourage him to continue doing the things God had called him to. Finally, I was going to share with him how much I appreciate him and his friendship. The thing is that I saw him, the Sunday before he died and I had the opportunity to say those things but I thought to myself that I was going to see him on Thursday and I would just tell him then. Unfortunately, Thursday never came for Bobby.

So the last couple of days I have been thinking about how many opportunities we have to tell the special people in our lives, how we feel about them but we put it off until a "special" day whether its a meeting, a birthday, a party or any day in the future. With Valentine's day approaching, I wonder how many people keep from telling their special someone how much they love them because they are going to tell them on Valentine's day. I wonder if any parent has a child's birthday coming up and that is when they are going to tell them how much they love them or maybe its an upcoming graduation and thats when you are going to tell him or her how proud you are of them.

I was going to tell Bobby the things that were on my heart on Thursday but Thursday came too late. We all have people in our lives that we need to share with, how we feel about them and I want to encourage you to do it today because tomorrow may be too late.

Learning to Follow

Recently, my wife and I took our 14 month old daughter Taylor to the mall. Taylor is at the age where she is getting more and more independent so she did not want to be held or pushed around in a stroller. She wanted to walk on her own. She is a pretty good walker, so we decided that would be fine. Well we put her down and mom had to go ahead to return something so it was just Taylor and I. As we walked, I lead the way with Taylor following. Taylor did great except that every couple of steps she would get distracted and either stop or go in a different direction. This was right before Christmas so there were lights, shiny ornaments, wreaths and lighted trees everywhere. It wasn't that she was purposely being disobedient rather she was distracted by things that seemed so attractive. The truth is that if she could actually touch the things she was distracted by, she would get bored of them real quickly but she can always have an adventure and with her dad. Still, these unfulfilling distractions were causing her to follow her father less closely.

By now you have probably guessed where I am going with this. In my spiritual walk, I act just like Taylor. My heavenly father has called me to follow Him and He has taken me on this walk called life. However, there are many times when although I love my father, I stop following Him as closely as I should because I am distracted by life's "shiny" and attractive objects. I may not even notice it but as I follow my father, my pace starts slowing down and I start to wander from the path He has set for me because of unfulfilling distractions.

But the good news for Taylor and I both is that the father's love is unlimited. You see, I love Taylor more than I ever though I could. I could never leave her. I would never desert her. So as I watched my daughter wander from the path I had set for her, I stopped reached my hand out and called out to her to start following me again. Sometimes, I had to wait longer than others and there were even times that I had to walk back to where she had stopped and help her get going again. This is exactly what God does to us. Even when we wander and stop following Him, sometimes He waits and sometimes He even meets us where we are "stuck" and helps us get going again because He loves us, He will never leave us or forsake us.

So, my challenge is to learn how to follow. I need to learn how to follow my amazing loving father without getting distracted by any and every shine object that promises fulfillment. I must learn how to continue to put one step in front of another and follow Christ closely at all times. It is only then, that I can experience the fullness life with God rather than enjoying God a few steps at a time.

Trust

This morning I was reading Ezekiel when I came across a very interesting set of verses. In the 16th Chapter of Ezekiel God describes how Israel became a nation. Through an allegory of a newborn baby growing into adulthood, God describes how His hand has been upon Israel and its growth. God talks of how He had given Israel "fame" and "beauty". But then He talks of how Israel has now trusted in its fame and beauty instead of God. How Israel has used its fame and beauty to "get ahead" and how its used the things God had given it to satisfy her own desires.

As I read this I had an interesting thought. Israel was not trusting in God, rather it was trusting in the things God had given it. Israel had forgotten that it was God who gave her the fame and beauty to begin with. Its like looking at a beautiful painting and saying the painting is beautiful but giving no credit to the artist ability to paint.

Then I thought of how often in my life I have put trust in the things of God instead of God. How I had put trust in God's people, or church, or books about God, etc. but not in God. And so many times I have put my trust in me or my abilities instead of God forgetting that it was God who made me in the first place and gave me my abilities.

What My 6 Month Old Daughter Taught Me

So, I was hanging out with my 6 month old daughter, Taylor, yesterday when she taught me an amazing lesson. We were just sitting on the couch playing. I was just holding her and she was looking around, moving around, jumping around...basically just being a restless 6 month old. She has just started sitting up on her own so I put her on the couch next to me with my arm around her. Well she continued to look all over, taking everything in, screaming in joy paying no attention to me but then something incredible happened. My daughter stopped looking around and moving around. She stopped making noise and then she put her head in my chest and just laid there. I don't know if there is any greater feeling in the world for a dad then the one I felt when she did this. I could stay in that moment forever with my child just resting on me quietly. She laid like that for a few short moments and then it was back to moving around and looking around, however I learned so much in those few moments.

In that moment, I was reminded of Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God." Watching my daughter, I realized that we are so much like her. We have this Father who wants to spend time with us, who loves us, who wants nothing more than for His children to put their heads in His chest and rest in Him. But most of the time we are too much involved with what is going on around us. See my daughter was trying to figure everything out. She was too interested in the amazing red drapes and the flashy television with all of its amazing colors. She was so distracted by all the things around her that she was not paying attention to the one who had provided all of those for her. In the same way, we are so distracted by all the things going on around us that too often we fail to pay attention to the one who not only provides everything but created everything.

But fortunately for me Taylor did have a moment where she stopped and realized her loving father was right there next to her. And the feeling that I got when she rested on me cannot be put into words and I would not trade it in for the world. I have to believe that God gets the same feeling when, in the midst of all the craziness in our lives, we stop...put our heads on our daddy's chest and rest in Him. I believe that is why over and over in His word He is trying to tell us to slow down and realize that we can find rest in Him. So when you find yourself caught up in the craziness of this life, when your distracted by all the things going on around you, may you realize that your Father is right there sitting on the couch next to you with His loving arm around you and may you turn off all the distractions, put your head on His chest and rest in Him.