Tag Archives: Follower

Chapter-a-Day

All You Nations

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pillow globePraise the Lord, all you nations;
    extol him, all you peoples.
Psalm 117:1 (NIV)

I am not what I would consider to be “well traveled” from an international perspective. I’ve done just enough travel to other nations and cultures to have a taste of life in other places. I am proud of my daughters. Even in their youth, they have travelled far more extensively than me and have experienced many other cultures on other continents. I have watched them approach life with a larger perspective on life than I see in most of their peers. Through their experiences I have gained a much bigger appreciation for our global village.

I am constantly aware that for my brothers and sisters around the globe, following Jesus comes with a much higher personal price tag:

  • In North Korea, being caught with a Bible or worshipping God will get you and your entire family thrown into the gulag. It is estimated that between 50,000-70,000 Jesus followers have been imprisoned. North Korea tops Open Door’s list of the 60 most dangerous countries for followers of Jesus. (OpenDoors.org)
  • In Syria in 2013, there were 2,123 documented killings of Jesus followers because of their faith (CBS News)
  • On New Year’s Eve in Cairo, a Jesus follower was shot leaving worship. He was turned away by three hospitals and died a short time later. (MideastChristianNews)
  • On January 3rd in Lebanon a Greek Orthodox priest, whose personal library of books and resources had been used by the whole community, had his entire library torched and an employee shot. An interview with the priest, published years ago, had been deemed blasphemous to Islam. (WorldWatchNews)

This morning I am thinking about how easy it is to follow Jesus in this place where I live. While grateful for this, I confess how susceptible I am to giving undue daily emotional concern and mental energy to what my daughter Taylor labels “Midwest white girl problems.” When I read the lyric in the psalmist’s short, ancient ditty calling on praise for all nations this morning, it reminded me of my penchant for living an insular life and my need to widen my perspective. In the quiet of this dark, Iowa morning I muse that ease and affluence may be more eternally detrimental to my spiritual well-being than the daily suffering and persecution faced by my brothers and sisters around the globe.

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Chapter-a-Day

Upstream Living

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Result of a serious automobile accident
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Our hearts ache, but we always have joy. We are poor, but we give spiritual riches to others. We own nothing, and yet we have everything. 2 Corinthians 6:10 (NLT)

Some friends of our daughter and son-in-law recently had their car stolen. The police reported a week or so later that they had found the stolen car because it had been wrecked. Two young girls had stolen the car and subsequently got in an accident. As owners of the car, our kid’s friends had every right to be angry and to desire swift and severe punishment for the girls. They chose, however, to find out the identity of these young perpetrators of grand theft auto and….wait for it…invite them over for dinner.

I thought about this gracious couple as I read Paul’s words to the believers in Corinth this morning. As followers of Jesus, we are called to respond differently than the world responds. When hated, we love. When injured, we forgive. When insulted, we bless. When suffering, we rejoice. When in need, we are to be content. When in plenty, we give away. When slapped on one cheek, we offer the other. When our car is stolen and wrecked, we invite the thieves over for a home cooked meal.

In a world of mindless lemmings and the herd mentality it is easy to go with the flow.

The path of faith leads upstream.

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Chapter-a-Day

High Fidelity

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Label and sleeve from one of the first mass pr...
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So you must remain faithful to what you have been taught from the beginning. 1 John 2:24a (NLT)

Over the past few years Wendy and I have invested in some quality audio equipment for listening to movies, music, calls that I must analyze for work, and etc. It’s nothing over-the-top, mind you, but it’s not cheap either. It’s good quality. In retro days of turntables and Long Play (LP) vinyl records we called it “high-fidelity” which then became simply known as “hi-fi.” Fidelity comes from the latin word, fidelis which means faithfulness. High-Fidelity meant a faithful reproduction of the original music, it was “true to sound.”

With the deterioration of my hearing over the past several years, I find that having high-fidelity audio makes a difference in my everyday listening I do for work and pleasure. I thought about this as I read the second chapter of John’s letter and his encouragement to remain faithful to what we’ve been taught from the beginning.

Faithful. Fidelis. High-fidelity. A faithful reproduction of the original.

The original that John points to is Jesus and His teaching:

  • Love God with everything you’ve got
  • Love others as you love yourself
  • Forgive those who’ve wronged you
  • Bless and show love to those you can’t stand
  • Treasure people not things
  • Take loving care of societal outcasts and those less fortunate
  • Give until it hurts (then give some more)
  • Do the right thing, not the religious thing
  • Concern yourself with eternal things, not temporary things

Jesus said that the world was full of people who are always hearing, but never listening and understanding. That’s a word picture I live every day as my ears hear what people say but somewhere between the ear drum and the brain it all gets muffled, garbled and largely unintelligible. Thanks to some hi-fidelity hearing aids and audio equipment, I can usually both hear and understand.

Perhaps that’s why as Jesus followers we are called to be a faithful reproduction of the original: So a blind and deaf world might see, hear, and understand – and follow along. I’m far from perfect and after 30+ years I still have so far to go, but more than ever I want to be a high-fidelity follower of Jesus and His Message. Please God, help to increasingly make me a faithful reproduction of the original.

Chapter-a-Day

Old Patterns of Thought & Behavior

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Genesis
Reflecting on Genesis (Photo credit: cajaygle)

Now Joseph gave these instructions to the steward of his house: “Fill the men’s sacks with as much food as they can carry, and put each man’s silver in the mouth of his sack.2 Then put my cup, the silver one, in the mouth of the youngest one’s sack, along with the silver for his grain.” And he did as Joseph said. Genesis 44:1 (NLT)

As I’ve been reading through the stories of Genesis once again, I’ve been tracking this pattern of deceit revealed through the generations of Abraham’s family. When we first meet Abraham’s great grandson Joseph, he is revealed to be a boy who speaks to truth simply and plainly (seemingly to his detriment). As a result, he’s sold into slavery and has not been a part of the family for years and years.

How fascinating that as soon as his brothers show up in Egypt, Joseph begins to deal with them deceitfully. He does not immediately reveal who he is. He has things snuck into their sacks. He schemes to have his brother Benjamin brought back to Egypt and now schemes to keep Benjamin in Egypt when the rest of the brothers go home.

Roles and patterns in the way a family systemically operates and behaves is very powerful. I’ve known people who have spent years apart from their unhealthy family system working to understand and change their own behaviors, but once they return to their familial home for a visit they fall right back into their old role within the system. It’s a fascinating thing about the way we broken human beings live and behave in our fallen world.

One of the reasons that I have been and remain a follower of Jesus is because of His promise and provision of divine forgiveness and undeserved favor in spite of my many failings. I’m no different than Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Lamech, Rachel, Leah, Joseph or his brothers. Despite my best efforts to live honestly and truthfully as God would have me do, like Joseph I find myself getting sucked back into old negative patterns of thought and behavior again and again. I need copious doses of God’s forgiveness, mercy and grace.

A second reason I remain a follower of Jesus is because of His promise and provision to bring lasting positive change into my life. Despite my failings I can look back across the years and see the many ways that God’s grown me up, honed me, humbled me, and made me into a better human being. Were it not for God’s non-stop work of convicting, prodding, pushing, guiding and molding me over 30 plus years, I hate to think of the person I would have become.

Today, I’m reminded that no one is immune from falling off the path and back into destructive old patterns and behaviors. I’m equally reminded that God is faithful to both forgive us our failures and empower us towards getting back on the road which leads toward Life.

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Dirty Harry Blues

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Chapter-a-Day Psalm 58

Then at last everyone will say,
    “There truly is a reward for those who live for God;
    surely there is a God who judges justly here on earth.”
Psalm 58:11 (NLT)

I was reading a college paper my daughter wrote just the other day about human trafficking and slavery in today’s world. The numbers were depressing. Close to two million human beings enslaved in the world and most of them falling under the designation of the sex slave trade. Even here in the “land of the free” the number of human beings enslaved and trafficked for the sex slave trade is estimated to be 10,000 or more. And, this is just the tip of the injustice iceberg when you start talking about slave labor, corrupt governments, organized crime, drug cartels, religious intolerance, and genocide. The weight of it all is enough to make a person’s blood boil with righteous anger.

Today’s chapter is what scholars call an “imprecatory” psalm. That’s a fancy word meaning to call down a curse on someone. David is calling on God to violently destroy those who do evil in this world, and it’s a bit difficult for some people to reconcile with Jesus’ call to love our enemies and bless those who persecute us.

Great songwriters know how to express the breadth of the human experience in the language of music. David was not just a warrior; He was an artist, as well. When he wrote his songs, which we now refer to as psalms, he covered his own emotional spectrum from A to Z. When David was feeling good, he wrote a rockin’ song of praise. When David got angry, he wrote the blues. Because he was both an artist and a warrior, his blues lyrics didn’t come out sounding like a helpless victim, they came out sounding like Dirty Harry.

From the time David was a kid he faced injustice with a sling and a sword.  When he saw the injustice of the way Goliath was mocking God, David killed the giant and cut off his head. David was a soldier and a warrior and his first instinct was to exact justice with capital punishment. Therefore, when he looked at the injustice of the world, his warrior heart wanted God to show up with a sword and destroy the guilty. David was expressing a very real emotion that is part of the human experience – to see those who do evil punished and destroyed. It’s the same satisfaction we feel when we see the evil villain taken out at the end of the movie.

Yesterday we talked about the fact that being a Jesus follower means choosing to swim against the tide of our emotions and circumstances. Because we’re called on to love our enemies doesn’t mean our natural emotions aren’t going want to see them dead. That’s what makes Jesus followers different. There is a difference between feeling anger about the corporate evil of injustice and acting out in anger against an individual. We may feel David’s righteous anger and desire to see all who do evil destroyed. We might even sing right along with him. When faced with how we respond to an individual who has wronged us, it our conscious choice to act against anger and vengeance and to inexplicably choose forgiveness and grace that reveals our faith and marks us as followers of Jesus. That is what Jesus meant when He said that the world will know His followers by their love.

 

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 9

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English: Photograph of holing binoculars
English: Photograph of holing binoculars (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Those who know your name trust in you, for you, O Lord, do not abandon those who search for you.
Psalm 9:10 (NLT)

Ask a follower of Jesus to tell you their story and the opening chapters of the tale you will hear will typically be about that person’s search. Before one becomes a follower, before you are in relationship, and even before you know Him by name, you first find yourself a seeker.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” Matthew 7:7-8 (NIV)

As with all that God has created, there is generally a natural and organic progression to things. The search is critical, for what you seek determines the paths you choose and the paths you choose determine where you end up.

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” – Jeremiah 29:13 (NIV)

God does not abandon those who search after Him.

Don’t give up.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day John 1

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Calling of Saints Andrew and Peter, by Caravaggio
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Jesus looked around and saw them following. “What do you want?” he asked them.

They replied, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”

“Come and see,” he said. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when they went with him to the place where he was staying, and they remained with him the rest of the day.
John 1:38-39 (NLT)

There is a certain flow to the experience of being a follower of Jesus. Everyone has a unique story, and yet there are similarities with which I believe every other follower identifies.

As I read in today’s chapter about these first followers in John’s two thousand year old account, there was something oddly familiar to their story. I remember that curiosity in my own life. I remember following behind; following at a distance. I recall looking, and watching, and wondering.

The turn. The look. The smile. The question.

“Come and see,” He said.

No demand. No rule. No zeal required. No selling of the soul. No signing on the dotted line. No commitment. Simply an invitation: “Come and see for yourself.”

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Matthew 28

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Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: “God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.” Mathew 28:18-20 (MSG)

This morning as I thought about Jesus final charge to His followers, I pondered the process. Jesus teaches the disciples, then sends them out. The disciples teach another generation of followers who are sent out and on, and on, and on.

I think back to the people who were instrumental in my own decision to follow, and my subsequent learning to follow. I remember Bob. I think of my parents and my siblings. I think of Chuck, Andy, and David. I remember teachers like John, Dave, and Bill. I think back to amazing friends who have been instrumental in walking beside me in key stretches of the sojourn like Randy, Dave, Craig, Kirk, Stephen, Jon, Kevin, and Matthew.

All of us who follow received from others who learned from those before who received it from yet others who walked their own journey long before us. It is a spiritual lineage that goes back all the way to Jesus standing on a mountain with a handful of followers.

Today, I’m thankful for those who have been instrumental in my own spiritual journey. I pray that I have been and will continue to be faithful in passing what has been entrusted to me along to my children, eventually to my grandchildren, and to those who God brings into my sphere of influence.

Keep passing the baton. The race isn’t over.

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Chapter-a-Day Matthew 21

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Jesus said, “Yes, and I tell you that crooks and whores are going to precede you into God’s kingdom. John came to you showing you the right road. You turned up your noses at him, but the crooks and whores believed him. Even when you saw their changed lives, you didn’t care enough to change and believe him.” Matthew 21:31b-32 (MSG)

Along my journey, I’ve worshiped in, served on staff, or been in positions of leadership in a handful of different churches and denominations: Methodist, Baptist, Non-Denominational, Community, Presbyterian, Quaker, and Reformed. It’s given me a wide variety of experiences.

As I read the accounts of Jesus’ run ins with the religious leaders of his day, I always picture the religious and denominational leaders of my day having the same conflicts and run-ins with Him. In almost every denomination I’ve experienced, I’ve witnessed or been engaged in run-ins with religious leaders and authorities who act not unlike the Pharisees and Saduccees of Jesus’ day. It’s made me wonder if all human religious institutions, even those dedicated to Jesus, don’t follow the same paths towards human pride, power, and self-importance. I begin to think that it’s inevitable given the nature of man.

Today, this leads me down a path of introspection. As we begin Holy Week, I’m thinking about myself and where I fit in the story. What character in the story of Jesus’ final days, crucifixion, and resurrection do I most identify with? Am I more like Caiaphas the high priest, or Mary Magdalene? Am I more a part of the human institution of the church or a heart and life follower of Jesus? I don’t want to be like the religious leaders whose life was dedicated to the practice of religion but whose hearts and lives would not change to embrace  the Truth. I want to be like the “crooks and whores” whose belief is evidenced by a changed life. I want to go to the grave still becoming more like Jesus.

Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner.

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