@ the crossroads

Today is Ash Wednesday, a day that marks the beginning of Lent.  Ashes in the Bible are associated with repentance (see Job 42:6).  In some Christian traditions, ashes are put on one’s forehead in the form of a cross as a symbolic act of repentance and sorrow over sin.  Whether you put ashes on your forehead today or not, Ash Wednesday can be a wonderful reminder that we are to be people marked by repentant hearts that are soft toward God and mournful toward the sin in our lives.

The religious landscape of the first century was quite complex.  Jesus wrestled with the Pharisees and other religious leaders to see the spiritual heart of the law; the man-made complexities of the law had created a burdensome religiosity.  The religious leaders took the 613 laws found in the Old Testament and they divided those into positive (”do this”) and negative (”don’t do this”) commands.  There were 248 affirmative commands (one for every part of the body…as they understood it) and 365 negative commands (one for each day of the year).  Then, they subdivided the list yet another time into binding and nonbinding commands.  The religious leaders would then debate whether the divisions were truly accurate and they would proceed to rank the importance of each command within the respective divisions.  Anyone confused yet?

Jesus walks courageously into this complex context and says:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.   (Matt. 22:37-40)

Jesus summarizes the entire Law into 1 + 1; love God and love others.  If your spiritual life is feeling like a complex algebra problem today, return to simple math! 

Crossroads is committed to a holistic approach to mission.  We are passionate about communicating the supremacy of Jesus Christ through word and deed.  Seeds of Hope, one of our mission partners, recently sent an update stating that their clean water projects have helped to provide clean water to over a quarter of a million people.  Thousands of people in Zambia are receiving clean water through the generous donations of Christ followers from around the world, including the people of Crossroads.  Thank you for generously giving to the mission vision of Crossroads Community Church.  Your donations are making an eternal difference!  Last year, we raised $5,500 to drill a well in Africa and provide clean drinking water to hundreds of people.  Today, there is less disease in this part of Africa due to the gift of clean water.

Matthew 26:37-40 says,

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you  sick or in prison and go to visit you?’  The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’”

*An average human scalp has 100,000 hairs (God knows exactly how many your head contains).

*A human loses an average of 40 to 100 strands of hair a day (God knows the number you will lose today).

*An individual blood cell takes about 60 seconds to make a complete circuit of the body (God knows exactly how long each of your blood cells take).

*On average, a human blinks 25 times a minute (God knows how many times you blink each minute).

*By the age of 70, the average heart beats 2.5 billion times and pumps 48 million gallons of blood (God knows exactly how many heart beats you have had).

*An average eyelash lasts 150 days (God knows the life-span of each of your eyelashes).

*Cells within the taste bud have a limited life span of approximately ten days to two weeks (God knows exactly how many taste buds you currently have).

*Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 miles per hour (God knows how quickly your impulses travel).

*The human body is estimated to have 60,000 miles of blood vessels.  To put that in perspective, the distance around the earth is about 25,000 miles, making the distance your blood vessels could travel if laid end to end more than two times around the earth (God knows exactly how many miles of blood vessels you have).

David wrote these words in Psalm 139:

O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.  You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.  You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.  Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.

Today, if you are feeling forgotten or lonely, please know that you are known.  Your needs, desires, struggles, sorrows, and joys are all known.  Take comfort in being known!

In the world of sports, there is a hotly pursued strategy of assessing an opponent’s weaknesses through scouting.  The ability to discern where a player or a team is weak and then exploit that weakness is often a wonderful way to get the upper-hand in competition.  Seeking out areas of vulnerability pays big dividends in the mega dollars of professional sports.

While the competition in professional sports may be great, the competition for mastery of our souls is even greater.  The Bible defines the battle within our hearts as the war between the flesh and the Spirit.  The flesh is selfish by nature and has an aversion to God’s presence, whereas the Spirit-controlled life is lived in pursuit of God and seeks to find pleasure in Him.  However, even in a situation when a person gives his life to Jesus Christ, there will be skirmishes with the dark, shadow side of the person.  Vulnerabilities will be sought out by the enemy.  Peter said, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).  Let me give you a few examples of vulnerabilities in relation to the sports theme:

*In football, the vulnerable area may be a weak running game.  In our lives, it may be explosive anger.

*In baseball, the weakness may be the lack of a strong closing pitcher.  In our lives, it may be dependency on alcohol to take the edge off a stressful day.

*In golf, the vulnerability may lie in the short game around the green.  In our lives, it may be wandering eyes and lustful thoughts. 

Jesus uses the term “strong man” (see Mark 3:27) to describe Satan and the powers of darkness that are focused on exploiting our weaknesses and binding up our lives to keep us paralyzed in sin.  The strong man is cunning and deceptive, often taking good things and turning them into destructive forces in our lives.  For example, a fun trip to the mall may turn into a compulsive shopping spree that leaves one feeling guilty and buried in credit card debt.  The strong man perhaps has tapped into a vulnerability of maintaining an attractive, hip image (at all costs!).  Or, the wonderful God-given gift of sex in the context of marriage may turn into an illicit affair or countless hours of lustful thoughts through the use of pornographic magazines and videos.  In this case, the strong man has exploited the vulnerabilities of loneliness, false intimacy, or perhaps even unhealed wounds from past abuse.

The wonderful news about Jesus Christ is that his power is infinitely greater than the bulk of the strong man.  With a word, Jesus has the ability to tie up the strong man, but God wants us to give Christ access to all the areas of our hearts and hold nothing back from his presence and work.  Robert Munger’s classic little book, My Heart Christ’s Home, gives a wonderful illustration of Christ’s work in the corners of our hearts–if we’ll allow access:

One day I found Him waiting for me at the door. An arresting look was in His eye. As I entered, He said to me, “There is a peculiar odor in the house. Something must be dead around here. It’s upstairs. I think it is in the hall closet.”

As soon as He said this, I knew what He was talking about. There was a small closet up there on the hall landing, just a few feet square. In that closet, behind lock and key, I had one or two little personal things that I did not want anyone to know about. Certainly, I did not want Christ to see them. I knew they were dead and rotting things left over from the old life. I wanted them so for myself that I was afraid to admit they were there.

Reluctantly, I went up with Him, and as we mounted the stairs the odor became stronger and stronger. He pointed to the door. I was angry. That’s the only way I can put it. I had given Him access to the library, the dining room, the living room, the workroom, the rec room, and now He was asking me about a little two-by-four closet. I said to myself, “This is too much. I am not going to give Him the key.”

“Well,” He said, reading my thoughts, “if you think I’m going to stay up here on the second floor with this smell, you are mistaken. I will go out on the porch.” Then I saw Him start down the stairs.

When one comes to know and love Christ, the worst thing that can happen is to sense Him withdrawing His fellowship. I had to give in.

“I’ll give You the key,” I said sadly, “but You will have to open the closet and clean it out. I haven’t the strength to do it.”

“Just give me the key,” He said. “Authorize me to take care of that closet and I will.”

 What types of things are you trying to hide in the recesses of your heart?  In what areas are you allowing the strong man to have his way?  Give Christ the key today so you can strengthen your areas of vulnerability and begin to experience victory through your Savior!

Back in 1992, I worked as a youth pastor in a church in downtown Los Angeles.  My office was located in the top floor of an old church building and the view from the office window was absolutely stunning.  On a clear, ”smog-less” day, I could see the famous Hollywood sign nestled on the slopes of the foothills.  Hollywood has a reputation as a place where people go to get noticed.  This is supposedly the location where dreams become reality and the average, unnoticed person may indeed rise to the level of worldwide super-stardom. 

Sometimes, the Hollywood vibe can infiltrate our life with Christ.  The need to be noticed can easily become our motivation in serving God and others.  This inner craving for approval and notoriety has insecurity as its fountain source.  We falsely believe that popularity, or at least a deceptively thin veneer of “success” will somehow ultimately lead to a place of contentment, satisfaction, and meaning. 

If anyone knew the temptation to form one’s identity around the expectations of the crowd, it was Jesus.  The Son of God could have used the celebrity status card at any moment, yet he chose to live for the voice of the Father, not the voice of the populace.  Mark’s Gospel makes a clear statement about Jesus’ refusal to be moved away from the mission by a desire to become noticed.  Mark writes:

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, let the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.  Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you.”  Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else–to the nearby villages–so I can preach there also.  That is why I have come.”  (Mark 1:35-38)

 Here are a few thoughts about Jesus, the Hollywood syndrome, and how to be faithful to our God-given missions:

1) Jesus’ identity as the Son of God remained strong through personal prayer and intimate connection to the Father.  Like Jesus, we too are called to draw our identities from God.  This demands time alone with our Creator.  When we take the time to allow God to speak into our lives, we discover affirmation as His children, conviction of sin, and the promise of His presence, all of which work to keep us centered in our lives.  In other words, we don’t think more highly of ourselves than we ought, and, on the other side of the scale, we don’t embrace too low a view either.  Through ongoing, humble prayer, God gives us an accurate perception of who we are.  We don’t need to be celebrities–we are children of the King!

2) When the disciples were worked up in a frenzy about the expectations of the crowd, I find Jesus’ response–”let us go somewhere else”–to be quite humorous and telling.  Jesus was more concerned about the mission than the popularity.  In fact, many times Jesus told people to pipe down about him because he knew the popularity could very well jeopardize the effectiveness of the mission.  A great question for us to consider is this: Are we more concerned about making Jesus famous or ourselves famous?  Or, another way of putting it: Are we willing to give up being noticed so the Kingdom of God can spread more rapidly?  

For just a moment, think about all the people who have most greatly influenced you in your journey with Christ.  If I had to guess, I would say most (if not all) of these people are relatively unknown and probably do not have household names.  Jesus does mighty, powerful work through those who live in relative obscurity.  This is great news for people like–well….us!    

I recently discovered that according to my age, height, weight, and body mass index, I have approximately 1,036,421,782 seconds to live.  This information will sober up anyone’s Thursday morning delusions of grandeur.  Most humans struggle with the wishing away syndrome–wishing away the weekdays to get to the weekend; wishing away school to begin a ”real job”; wishing away work to realize retirement; wishing away diapers on children to enter the glorious days of post-diaperdom; wishing away the days until the Cubs season opener–all the while, life is happening and we end up missing a good portion of it due to an underlying soul discontentment or an excessive forward thrust of vision that blinds us to the reality of today. 

There is an early 80’s song by the J. Geils band called Freeze Frame.  I know–I’m stooping to new lows by referencing the Great 80’s–however, hear me out.  I mention the song title because I have found myself looking at certain situations in life through the lens of a freeze frame concept as it helps me to live more fully in the moment.  Let me give you an example.  A few days ago, my daughter Abbie grabbed my arm and said, “Daddy, come and watch me dance.”  So I obediently followed my little girl into the playroom and proceeded to watch her turn on the Princess CD player, choose her favorite tune, and dance her heart out.  As she was dancing, I caught myself thinking: These moments will not last forever.  It won’t be long and the Princess CD player won’t be “cool” anymore; It won’t be long and daddy won’t be “cool” anymore!  And so I did a freeze frame on that moment.  I intentionally stored that interaction in my mind so I could live more fully in the now. 

Frederich Buechner, one of my favorite authors, has summed up the freeze frame mode of living quite well.  He writes:

Listen to your life.  See it for the fathomless mystery it is.  In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.  (From Now and Then)

There is a short phrase tucked away toward the end of the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae.  Paul writes, “Make the most of every opportunity.”  In other words, live with a freeze frame mentality, savor the seconds, and be fully present in the present.  The stakes are simply too high if we don’t freeze frame; life becomes lost in the urgent and the trivial.

In the time it has taken me to write this post, about 900 seconds have slipped away from my life.  I’ll close for now so I can go home and dance with my daughter…

 When Jesus told his disciples, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,” he uses the word diakonos for servant, a word that many speculate meant ‘through the dust’ in its etymology.  Servants are those who kick up a ton of dust because they are passionate about serving others.  Imagine the influence of a church full of dedicated servants!  Can you say “dust storm”? 

We all need heroes of the faith–people who inspire us to keep running the race marked out for us.  George Muller is one of those heroes for me.  Muller was a deeply devoted Christ follower who spent most of his life in Bristol, England, pastoring the same church for over sixty-six years.  He is most widely known as an entrepreneneur who developed orphanages for hundreds of children. 

As Crossroads continues the sojourn through the New Testament in 2009, we must be careful to not take God’s Word for granted or become lax in our approach to God’s words of life.  Yesterday I was reading a portion of George Muller’s autobiography where he discusses his insatiable desire to hear the Word of God.  He writes, “…I often walked ten or fifteen miles to enjoy the privilege of hearing the Word.”  Can you imagine walking 10 to 15 miles to hear the Word? 

Here is a question for the day: How far would you walk to hear or read the Word?

Pastor and author John Piper wrote these inspiring words about Muller:

He had read his Bible from end to end almost 200 times.  He had prayed in millions of dollars (in today’s currency) for the orphans and never asked anyone directly for money. He never took a salary in the last 68 years of his ministry, but trusted God to put in people’s hearts to send him what he needed. He never took out a loan or went into debt.  And neither he nor the orphans were ever hungry.

 May you be inspired today to continue to read, meditate, and pray through the Word!

The Greek word that the Bible uses for “great” or “large” is mega.  We all seem to have an innate fascination with mega–mega malls, mega money, mega meals, Mega Millions, and, yes, even megachurches.  There is a temptation to believe that bigger always means better.  Indeed, bigger may mean better (especially when it comes to the size of my Starbucks coffee cup).  However, there is not necessarily a direct correlation between the visible size of something and its amount of power or significance.  This is particularly true when it comes to the Kingdom of God.  Jesus, in an important conversation with his disciples, said,

Whoever wants to become great (MEGA) among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave–just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:26-27)

The Jesus revolution is marked by individuals who willingly take the posture of servants and humbly refuse to clamor for notoriety and recognition.  Greatness comes through pouring out one’s life for God and others.  In the 17th century, Brother Lawrence, the author of The Practice of the Presence of God, wrote:

Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do…We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king.  It is enough for me to pick up but straw from the ground for the love of God.

My daughter Abbie takes weekly piano lessons.  When her lesson for the week is finished, her instructor allows her to take a small piece of candy as a reward.  Each week, Abbie selects a Reece’s peanut butter cup–not for herself, but for me!  When she walks into the house on Wednesday nights after her lesson, she will hand me the Reece’s with a grin on her face; this is service with a smile.  As a parent, this simple, humble act rises quickly to MEGA status in my mind and I am constantly overwhelmed with the power and significance of the little things done in loving service.

As followers of Jesus, let us never forget the power of seemingly small acts of service.  Micro is MEGA in the Kingdom of God!