He Called Disciples

But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. -- 1 Corinthians 9:27

Paul was not a complacent Christian.  Leading up to this verse, he compares our life in Christ to a race in the Olympic Games and to a wrestling match or boxing match. 

You have to play by the rules:   Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? (Matthew 7:21-22) Not everyone who enters the race will finish. 

We know from Philippians 3:12 that the Apostle did not claim to have attained perfection.  Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.  Every day there are new challenges.  We struggle; we stumble; we start again.  A little further on in his First Epistle to the Church at Corinth, Paul says, “I die every day!” (1 Corinthians 15:31)

There is no place for complacency in our walk, but there is also no place for discouragement or despair.  Like Paul, like the Lord Himself, our lives have to be marked by humility and meekness.  We are what we are by God’s grace.  He calls us ever “further up and further in”, and there are times when the way is steep.  The undisciplined – like me – we’ll need all the help we can get.  I struggle with pride and smugness, too -- which seems contradictory, but some of us are prone to over-steering.  

Perhaps I am apathetic about the hard things and overly impressed with how well I do on the easy things.  In any case, I need to be on guard, watching, praying, calling myself out, and refusing to jump to my own defense if someone else calls me out.  When I come to the end, I’d like to be able to say, or have it said of me, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith (2 Timothy 4:7).  With that I would be content.

Crisis, Commitment, Communion

Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. -- Proverbs 13:11

I think I heard that there were three winning tickets for this week’s huge Powerball drawing.  That’s means probably a minimum of a hundred million or so to each winner – a lot of money to be dumped into someone’s lap.  Most of us cannot even imagine what that means, and most people cannot handle that kind of wealth.  We have learned how to manage the income we have.  Poor people have acquired skills in dealing with poverty.  Show up at any Walmart or similar store the day after the monthly load of EBT cards takes place.  These people know to the minute when their money will be available.  They know to the penny how much they have -- three or four hundred bucks, or fifteen hundred, a person like that can manage with some degree of skill.  Give them access to a hundred thousand, a million or a hundred million, and they simply have no concept.

It happens to lottery winners, to athletes, and to some entertainers – especially those who become overnight celebrities.  To the rest of us, it seems strange that someone who has an inordinate amount of money should ever end up in debt and bankrupt, yet, this is a very common path.  Managing large amounts of money is a skill like any other.  It can be learned, but it is takes time.  If your money comes in slowly and your wealth accumulates little by little, your management skills grow apace.  Everything works out.

The same applies in the spiritual realm.  We get a picture of it in type as God promises to give Canaan to the Children of Israel:    I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you.  Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land (Exodus 23:29-30). 

The problem the Israelites had was that, though they had been delivered from slavery, they were still slaves in terms of their mindset.  It took time for them to see themselves as the Lord saw them.  Upon encountering the gigantic inhabitants of Canaan, the faithless spies famously said that they were as grasshoppers in the eyes of their enemies, and in their own eyes.   After being beaten down and oppressed for generations, they could not change their minds about who they were and what they were capable of.  They had come out of Egypt in crisis which led to, quite naturally, celebration and vows of commitment, but very few of those so delivered entered into communion.

I believe that conversion is a genuine experience, but, at the same time, I am skeptical of instant Christians – just add water.  Typically, I think we come to a point of crisis where we realize what we are doing isn’t working.  We recognize and embrace the truth of the Gospel.  We commit ourselves to Christ.  The riches of God’s grace and mercy become available to us, and we rejoice.  After a while, though, most of us experience difficulties.  The same old problems confront us.  The same old man too often responds to those problems.  We wonder if we were ever “saved”, or if we need to “rededicate” our lives to Christ.  Maybe it didn’t take the first time.  I have a close relative who used to rededicate about every six months.  I don’t suppose it hurt anything, but I’m not sure it helped anything either.  How many times do you need to cross the Red Sea?  It borders on magical thinking. 

What did Jesus tell us to do in the Great Commission?  Make disciples.  Disciples are those under discipline.  They are learning and developing a new attitude and a new mindset – renewing our minds is the Scriptural phrase, to go with the new nature we have been given.  When people say that we learn to pray, we mean that people learn when to pray and that prayer is listening as much or more than pleading.  We have faith, but we need to develop it and refine it, challenge it and test it in real world situations. 

It takes time.  This is why most people do not die immediately after coming up from the waters of baptism.  A Crisis Christian can immediately or almost immediately become a Committed Christian resulting in a Celebrating Christian.  It doesn’t always happen, but it’s common.  To become a Communion Christian, however, is always going to be a process.  A few of us -- for reasons known only to God, move to that place fairly quickly.  To those watching from the outside, the transition may appear seamless and sudden.  The rest of us take the long way home.  We adapt slowly.  At times it may seem that we are making no progress at all, but we can trust that the Lord is leading by the way that is best.  Some of us take more changing than others, more dying to self than others.  Do not despair or fear.  Little by little, we grow in grace. 

Hear in the Real World

The Lord God has given Me the tongue of those who are instructed to know how to sustain the weary with a word. He awakens Me each morning; He awakens My ear to listen like those who are being instructed -- Isaiah 50:4

This verse is part of a long Messianic passage culminating in Isaiah 53. If you really want to know what the Crucifixion was like, read Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22.

The prophet is talking about the Lord’s Servant, describing both national Israel and the coming Messiah. When the Old Testament talks about the ultimate restoration and exaltation of Israel, it is talking about Christ who now embodies all of God promises made under both the Old and New Covenants. For every one of God’s promises is “Yes” in Him. Therefore the “Amen” is also through Him for God’s glory through us. (2 Corinthians 1:20)

The phase “those who are instructed” can be and is in some translations rendered as “disciple”. Jesus was given “the tongue of a disciple”. When He went into the synagogue, He was given the scroll and found it opened to a different passage in Isaiah – The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive and freedom to the prisoner, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of our God’s vengeance; to comfort all who mourn (Isa. 61:1,2).

In Acts, Peter talked about, “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and curing all who were under the tyranny of the Devil because God was with Him.”

And now He has us to get the job done.

I suppose walking on water and turning water into wine is good work if you can get it. Who knows? It could be that one of us will get the call to keep a party going by giving them a nice merlot from the kitchen tap. Usually I find myself with less glamorous jobs. I sometimes have to give an encouraging word with the buffalo aren’t roaming, or listen to the woeful tales of the brokenhearted while the cell phones are. None of it is too hard, really, but you have to start off right.

Though the prophet tells us first that the Servant is given the tongue of those who are instructed, it is the ear that is awakened first. Like faith, your mission comes by hearing. I’ve found that I can do some good just by doing the right thing – do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God. But for fulfilling Isaiah 61, I need to hear from God.

I remember lying face down on a motel bed in Red Oak, Texas, of all places, and getting a commission from God that completely changed the direction of my life. I lived the next decade as a raven. A raven is a big ugly bird of questionable habits, unclean and despised. Some ravens carried food to the prophet Elijah as he sat by a brook during a drought and famine. I have that on my resume.

A lot of people talk about “the Anointing” and how one is “so anointed” and all that. I look at the anointing a little differently. To me it is kind of like a position I step into or assume. I take my place. I do my job. I fulfill my purpose – even if it is just for today, or maybe just for an hour, when I make the call or send the email to a friend that is on my mind. In that moment I am anointed to do good and break the devil’s grip on somebody’s life. It’s not me – it’s the office.

It all begins with hearing, with being awakened by the Spirit of God. As Ricky Raccoon says, “Listening Now.” Sometimes it is a literal awakening – often at 3:00AM – the fourth watch of the night. Sometimes it is like a fingerless tap on the shoulder, or that still, small voice calling my name.

I’ve never opened any blind physical eyes, but I have helped open some spiritual eyes. I once helped set a prisoner free because I wrote a stupid little note of encouragement. I didn’t know what I was doing. I just heard and obeyed. There is a little boy walking around alive and well because I sent somebody an email about forgiveness. I had no idea what was going on. I just heard and obeyed.

He awakens your ear to listen like a disciple.