Tag Archives: disciple

Legitimacy in addiction.

Posted by gracefortheroad in The Mercy, The nations and tagged with , , , , , , ,
(Photo courtesy of @travelwithchris)

(Photo courtesy of @travelwithchris)

“You’re in good company if you’ve struggled with that.”

I lay in the Papasan chair on the screened back porch. The breeze blew and stirred up the leaves on the ground outside.

Seventy degrees in December. I’m not in England anymore.

I looked up at the stark blue sky. I used to watch planes crisscross the cloudy sky outside my window every minute or two when I lived on the Gatwick Airport flight path in England. Here, not a cloud. Not even one jet trail.

My passport’s tucked in a drawer for the first time in two and a half years.

“Realize there is legitimacy in your addiction. What Christian who has a front-row seat to seeing God move the way you have wouldn’t want that to continue? When we pray, ‘Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,’ you experienced a drop of what that will be like, and you want more – a LOT more.”

The words that a wise and understanding friend penned me when I got back to America resonate with me as I sit and watch the leaves rustle.

I do, Father.

I want a lot more.

And the more I put gas in the car, do the daily commute and sit at a desk, the more I realize … it’s not the travel I want.

It’s the concentrated time to see You at work, to learn Your heart. To really see You. To ask for more. Then to go where You go … or stay where You stay.

Before I moved to England, sure, I’d heard it. Sermons, Bible studies, etc. Do you get as excited about Jesus as you about a football game? Do you spend as much time reading the Bible as you do watching TV? Do you pray without ceasing? Do you love Jesus more than you love your stuff?

They’re all good questions … if we dare to deal with them at more than a surface level. Do I get as excited about Jesus as I do a football game? Um, that’d be weird and awkward to yell about Jesus. Do I love Jesus more than my stuff? Sure, I’ll put it all on Abraham’s altar … and expect it to not really be asked of me. Do I read my Bible as much as I watch TV? Is this like setting the egg timer for my preteen piano practice?

The real answers are a finger-smudged iPhone and a dusty Bible.

Or a finger-smudged egg timer and a dusty heart.

At this time of year, this kind of thought would normally lead into a New Year’s resolution for me. I’m gonna read my Bible more. I’m gonna get rid of some stuff. While I’m at it, I’ll lose a little weight and plan a trip to Europe.

Not this year. I don’t want resolutions.

I want Advent.

At this time of year 2,000 years ago, God’s people were waiting expectantly for the birth of the one Person worth everything. The only Man who would ever call out, “Follow Me,” and men would drop everything and run, only to find unspeakable joy. The God of the universe who would come and die a brutal death so that we could know Him and long for the day we’d be with Him face to face.

Jesus.

He’s not a tired Christmas song. He’s not a doll in a manger scene. He is the Savior our souls cry out for, whom we can know and want and chase after to the point that everything else truly fades away, not in an egg timer kind of way … in the kind of way that we forget the egg timer exists.

He’s a Savior who longs for us to push through the pat answers and know Him.

We talk about dreams (of travel, of marriage, etc.). We talk about plans (of being more disciplined, exercising more, reading the Bible more, moving away, etc.). But what of expectancy?

They longed for Him. He came.

And He’s coming back.

I want my candle trimmed and full of oil. (Matthew 25:1-13) I want my eyes trained on the sky, and not just for jet trails. Longing for the day He rips open the sky and sets everything right. The day we see His glory in its fullness.

I want more.

“When we pray, ‘Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,’ you experienced a drop of what that will be like … and you’ll get it by the hydrant full when His Kingdom does come on this earth for good. So know that experiencing the goodness of God IS addictive and that part is okay.”

Only the Father knows when He’ll come again. Only He knows where He will want me in this life – travel or no travel, being used or not being used, family or no family. Only He knows how many times I’m going to get this wrong along the way (over and over), and how desperately I need Him.

But one thing I know … this Advent, this Christmas, I long for His coming.

“The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” (Rev. 22:17)

“He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’” (Rev. 22:20)

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

****

(If you’re interested in a free downloadable book of short daily readings that John Piper wrote for Advent, click here. It’s really good.)

The church you hardly see.

Posted by gracefortheroad in The nations and tagged with , , , , , , ,

If you look at Cuba from the outside, you can hardly see the church.

David Platt went looking for it.

“I met a guy who had a house church, and that church had planted 60 other churches,” he said. And some of those churches had planted dozens of other churches themselves.

They don’t have buildings. They meet in houses. And the multiplication is insane.

David asked them how they do it, and they said simply, “We make disciples.”

“Oh,” he said with a smile. “That’s all.”

The more we complicate the system with programs and buildings, “the more we stifle church multiplication,” David said. “The Word of God and the Spirit of God – that’s all you need.”

This is the story in Cuba. It’s the story in China. It’s the story in India.

“Don’t we want it to be the story where we live?” David said.

It isn’t for pastors or church planters, he says. It’s for every follower of Christ. It’s biblical Christianity.

Let’s be real – it’s not easy. How do we take our jobs as writers, teachers, sandwich makers, accountants, moms and lawyers and make disciples where we are?

Look for the people beside you, David says. Share Christ with them. Let them into your life and see how you live. Pray and show them how you pray. Read the Bible and invite them to do it with you.

And don’t extract them from their old circles of people.

“Teach them to live the way you live among the people they know, and it will multiply,” David says. “We can shake the nations for his glory. Let’s do it knowing that it is costly but He is worth it.”

***

Want some practical help to make disciples among the people in your life?

The Multiply material is now available on the Multiply website at multiplymovement.com. It’s downloadable in pdf format.

Multiply.

Posted by gracefortheroad in The nations and tagged with , , , , , , ,

I know that feeling, the one Francis Chan is talking about. The one where you hear the truth just as Jesus spoke it to the rich young ruler and go away sad, heart rent in two.

And then do nothing.

“Jesus told the rich young ruler what he needed to do, and he went away sad (Luke 18). Then Jesus confronted Zacchaeus, another guy who was rich, and he changed his life (Luke 19).”

One was convicted. The other changed, Francis says. And the same two options exist when it comes to another command of Christ’s …

“Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations.”

“I know it’s hard,” Francis says. “I get that. I don’t like to offend people. I don’t like to share my faith. But God Almighty, God my Creator said go make disciples, so I don’t want to sit here and make excuses.”

We know what conviction feels like.

Ripped apart. Lunches after church where we talk about the beating we’ve just taken, or how convicted we felt after the sermon. And then nothing happened. And by that, I mean we did nothing.

Imagine meeting Christ face to face and answering His last command by not being able to produce a single disciple we’ve made.

“To know that command came from the mouth of Christ, and we can’t point to any disciples … I don’t think we realize how huge it is,” Francis says.

Sometimes we mean well.

We just twist that command to fit what we have gotten used to thinking it looks like, how soft we think the pew should feel and how long we want to sit on it. And that’s not OK.

It’s not for us.

“Jesus didn’t look at His disciples and say, ‘Alright, guys, now pair up and disciple each other.’” David Platt says. “The point of our Christian life is not to coast it out in one church for the rest of our life.”

Matthew 28:19 is not a comfortable call to come be baptized and sit in one place.

“It’s a costly command to go.”

What would happen if we did?

“We are on a mission that is guaranteed to succeed,” David says. “I can sit at lunch with a guy in Birmingham and share the gospel compassionately and confidently and know that it has the power to save him.”

And that lunch, that conversation, that mission … it can shake the nations for His glory.

Sometimes we think if Francis Chan or David Platt could have a conversation with the people we know, they’d come to Christ.

“But God put them beside you, in your life – and He knows what He’s doing,” David said.

You have a better chance of reaching the guy who works beside you at Subway than the guy on the corner with a sign or the preacher in the pulpit does, Francis said.

***

Want some practical help to make disciples among the people in your life?

The Multiply material is now available on the Multiply website at multiplymovement.com. It’s downloadable in pdf format.

Get in on the Gathering.

Posted by gracefortheroad in The nations and tagged with , , , , , , , ,

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me … go therefore and make disciples …

“A lot of people memorize this passage, but are we doing it? Is it happening?”

I’m not gonna lie, this girl misses England. But I’m so excited to be in Birmingham at the right time to be a part of what’s happening at The Church at Brook Hills tonight … thousands of people gathering at the church and via webcast to figure out how to do this together. Francis Chan will be there. David Platt will be there.

It’s going to be straightforward, practical and real. And I need it.

I’ll be blogging here from the Multiply gathering tonight at 7 CST. Want to watch it, too? You can at multiplymovement.com.

“Thank God it’s them instead of you.”

Posted by gracefortheroad in The Mercy, The nations and tagged with , , , , ,

“Grace, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Sure, what’s that?”

“If you don’t change your ringtone from ‘Dancing Queen’ to something else, your coworkers may band together and kill you.”

Sometimes an office is just too confined a space.

There was one fall, circa 2004, when the easy-listening station in Birmingham decided that, by popular demand apparently, it would start playing its not-very-extensive Christmas mix early that year.

On Nov. 1.

The dear friend at the desk next to me was elated. By Thanksgiving, if I’d heard Bing Crosby whistle one more time, or heard the word “hippopotamuses-es” again, Earl was going to have to die.

(And I like Bing Crosby.)

But the moment that would send me for a tea break every time is when the loop would make it back around to the Band Aid song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Even with the microwave running to heat up my tea water I could still hear George Michael and all his mulleted friends singing, “FEEEEEED the wooooorld …”

Those were the only three words I ever knew.

A couple of weeks ago as I was boarding a plane to Africa, I flashed my boarding pass to the flight attendant and realized … they’re playing Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” as the boarding music.

Wait. It’s February. They forgot to remove it from the mix, presumably.

No. Wait. Now it’s Band Aid.

As I sank down into my seat, I actually listened to that dang song for the first time. I was trapped, after all. And, ironically, it was apparently recorded to help with the famine in Africa back in 1984, so it seemed appropriate Africa travel kick-off music.

“But say a prayer
Pray for the other ones
At Christmas time it’s hard
But when you’re having fun
There’s a world outside your window
And it’s a world of dread and fear
Where the only water flowing
Is the bitter sting of tears
And the Christmas bells that ring there
Are the clanging chimes of doom
Well, tonight thank God it’s them instead of you.”

(Them.)

Wait.

Did it actually say to thank God it’s them and not you? As if He is going to give us a fist bump and say, “No worries. I’m happy to keep you out of the poverty they’re in. Glad you’re enjoying your wealth … it’s too bad for them, isn’t it?”

Gosh. It makes me shiver. Because I look at my life, and that’s exactly what I do and think, whether I mean to or not.

Because I do virtually nothing.

There’s a story about this. A man with nice clothes and fancy food who had a beggar named Lazarus living at his gates with no food, the dogs licking his sores. When they died, the poor man ended up with God, while the guy with nice clothes and fancy food ended up in torment. When he looked up and saw the poor guy, he asked if Lazarus could come and dip his finger in water and touch it to his tongue – he was in that much anguish. (Luke 16:19-30)

Interesting – he knew Lazarus’ name. So he must’ve known that the “only water flowing” in Lazarus’ life was “the bitter sting of tears.”

He probably laid down at night and thanked God that it was Lazarus instead of him.

The response from Abraham?

“Remember that you in your lifetime received good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.”

This story comes just after another story … one about being faithful with what we’re given, whether small or big. And that comes just a chapter after Jesus said that we should count the cost of our faith, because whoever does not renounce all he has can’t be His disciple.

Seriously. The Bible says these things. The same Bible I grew up reading in a super comfortable home, in a super comfortable church building.

What do we do with this?

To be completely honest, I have no idea … but I will say it’s wrecking my life. (In a good way.) I want to be His disciple. I want to have true faith. James 1 said true faith that God accepts is caring for widows and orphans in their distress. And in Hebrews 10:37-39, He says the one who shrinks back from living by faith until the end will be destroyed.

I’m taking Lent to pray intensely over this … to ask Him to plant in me His heart for the poor and what that means in my life. And I’m praying every day to figure out ways to help the poor. If you want to come along, some places to start might be Compassion International or Amazima, a nonprofit that feeds and empowers the poor to work in Uganda. If you want to hear more about how this is fleshed out in the Bible and in our lives today, listen to some of these brilliant podcasts.

I don’t make much, but I’m still richer than most of the world. And it doesn’t matter if my resource pool is small or big … He asks for all of it.