Take Up Your Cross?
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
Then Jesus began to tell them that the Son of Man must suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but three days later he would rise from the dead. As he talked about this openly with his disciples, Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things.
Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. “Get away from me, Satan!” he said. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”
Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? -Mark 8:31-36
If you want to follow Jesus, you better look good on wood. -Daniel Berrigan
Today, when someone talks about “the cross”, the first associations that enter our mind are Jesus and Christianity. When people hear the phrase, “take up your cross”, they often think about being called to bear something or do something difficult for Jesus. But to the people Jesus was addressing, his words would have meant something entirely different.
We don’t have the slightest idea how shocking, disturbing, and even dangerous these words were when Jesus uttered them. To the people of His time, the cross was a horrifying instrument of public execution. It was a constant reminder of Roman tyranny, and it was one of the most agonizing and shameful ways to die. Common criminals, thieves, and rebels against the Roman empire were killed by crucifixion. Before they were crucified, they were beaten and forced to carry their cross, their own instrument of execution, through the streets as a form of public humiliation.
Those are the things people would have thought when Jesus told them they would have to take up their cross daily if they wanted to follow Him. His words were a radical call to a different—and dangerous—way of life centered not on self, but on the Good News that Jesus is King.
Denying Myself, I Gain Everything
Monday, March 8th, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? -Luke 9:23-25
God’s Kingdom, as described by Jesus, seems completely upside-down. Jesus says that the first will be last and the last first, whoever wants to be greatest must be a servant, and, in the passage above, whoever loses his life will save it. All of these are inversions of our world’s way of doing things. Yet the more I see them worked out in the lives of people around me in our church and our community, the more I believe that these inversions are not upside-down, but rather rightside-up… and it is the world that has things backward.
It is a completely different way of thinking and living. Rather than pursuing my happiness first (and ultimately failing), I pursue what God wants, and somehow, He fills me to overflowing with everything I need, and I end up deeply happy. Consider what Jesus says in Matthew 6:31-33:
So then, don’t worry saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the unconverted pursue these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But above all pursue his kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
This is the paradoxical beauty of the Kingdom. We finally find our true selves, our true happiness, and our true meaning… but never while we are looking for them. Only while we are looking for Him.
A Revolution of Generosity
Sunday, March 7th, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
Today at Christ Community the message will be from Matthew 20:1-16. During His last week, Jesus spent one day teaching and telling a number of parable stories to His followers. This passage is one of the parables he told. Would you meditate on this passage of scripture? Ask God to open your eyes and heart as you do.
1″For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. 2He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3″About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5So they went.
“He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7″ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8″When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9″The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. 10So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12′These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13″But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16″So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
The Gift vs. The Giver
Saturday, March 6th, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
More than any other discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us. -Richard Foster
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. -Romans 1:25
Yesterday we talked about experiencing fasting as “hunger for God” in which we discover that God alone is enough for us. Yet another way fasting helps us grow closer to God is by showing us what things rule us. Often we are so used to the various influences in our lives that we don’t even notice what controls us.
In A Hunger For God, John Piper writes:
What are we slaves to? What are we most hungry for—food or God? Fasting is God’s testing ground—and healing ground. Will we murmur as the Israelites murmured in the absence of bread? For Jesus the question was: Would he leave the path of sacrificial obedience and turn stones into bread? Or would he “live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”? Fasting is a way of revealing to ourselves and confessing to our God what is in our hearts. Where do we find our deepest satisfaction—in God or in his gifts?
God is the Creator of all things, the great Giver who provides us with everything we need. James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” Yet when we fast, the way we react to the raw hunger we experience often reveals to us that we are more interested in the gift than the Giver—God doesn’t “change like shifiting shadows,” but we certainly do!
Fasting reveals and concentrates our desires. It shows what is under the surface, displaying to us who we really are. It’s like the hot water poured on a tea bag. If you want to know if the tea is good or not, smelling the bag is not enough. You have to pour on the water and wait. Once we know, we can seek meaningful change.
A Hunger for God
Friday, March 5th, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
Many people choose something to give up, or “fast from”, for Lent—chocolate, meat on Fridays, Facebook, and so on. But why do we fast? What is the purpose behind it? It’s not to make us feel holy. It’s not because fasting itself is pleasing to God. No, fasting itself is not the goal; it’s just one means to the end of cultivating deeper relationship with God. How can fasting help us do this?
One of the best answers I have found to this question of why we fast is in the book A Hunger For God by John Piper. In it, he references a parable Jesus tells about a farmer sowing seed on different types of soil. Maybe you have heard this story before. If not, you can read it in Mark 4:1-20. At the end, Jesus talks about how sometimes “desires for other things” choke out the seed (His word) that has sprouted in us.
About this, Piper says:
“Desires for other things”—there’s the enemy. And the only weapon that will triumph is a deeper hunger for God. The weakness of our hunger for God is not because he is unsavory, but because we keep ourselves stuffed with “other things.” Perhaps, then, the denial of our stomach’s appetite for food might express, or even increase, our soul’s appetite for God.
As Americans we are so well-off that we almost never have to go without food. Whenever we experience hunger, we satisfy ourselves almost immediately. The point of fasting is to help us understand what Jesus meant when He said, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” It is to help us experience the pain of hunger (or desire for whatever we are fasting from), and in the face of that pain, say: God is more than enough!
Father God, please help me to desire You deeply, knowing that You alone can satisfy. Please fill me today with Your grace and help me experience You as more than enough.
The Great Initiator
Thursday, March 4th, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
Truly I am God… I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it. -Isaiah 46:9,11
And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. -Philippians 1:6
We love because he first loved us. -1 John 4:19
I can’t seem to get that last verse out of my head: “We love because he (God) first loved us.” Think about that for a moment. We did not start our relationship with God; He did. In fact, the verse implies that the reason we are capable of love at all is because God loved us first. He initiates, and we respond.
I love how Paul corrects himself when he writes, “But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to…weak and worthless…things?” We are known by God. He initiates, and we respond. Henri Nouwen writes:
For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life—pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures—and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair.
Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?” The question is not “How am I to know God?” but “How am I to let myself be known by God?” And, finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” but “How am I to let myself be loved by God?” God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home.
How will you respond to God’s work in you and around you today?
Imitating God… A Life of Love
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
One evening when I was visiting a friend’s home for dinner, we were in the middle of an animated conversation. I was making a strange face about something when I noticed their son looking up at me and twisting his own face into a perfect imitation of my funny expression. A child’s special ability for imitation must be something built-in, because nearly two thousand years ago, the apostle Paul picked up on it and wrote:
Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children, and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. -Ephesians 5:1-2
Just like a little child copies things his parents do, Paul says we should copy God. Specifically, we should live the same sort of life of love that Jesus lived, sacrificially loving others as God gives us opportunity.
The “fragrant offering and sacrifice” Paul mentions is a picture from the Old Testament. Exodus 29:23,25 says:
…take a loaf, and a cake made with oil, and a wafer… and burn them on the altar along with the burnt offering for a pleasing aroma to the LORD….
In the same way that the smoke from the Old Testament burnt offerings made a “pleasing aroma” to God, our lives of sacrificial love, imitating Jesus, are a sweet fragrance to God.
Father God, please make clear to me how I can show Your love to people around me today. Help me experience Your love so deeply that it flows out from me to the people around me, especially to people who are hard to love. I want my life to be a sweet-smelling offering to You.
Purity of Heart
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
As we pass through the forty days of Lent, let’s regularly recall to mind these verses from the first week:
Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded…. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. -James 4:8,10
Sören Kierkegaard once wrote a meditation on James 4:8 which he entitled, “Purity of heart is to will one thing”. It is our “double-mindedness” that is our downfall! Our desires are for God and….
If I had written that meditation, I would have said, “Purity of heart is to love one thing.” I think what we love is even more primary than what we will, or choose, because our choices are based on what we love the most.
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” -Mark 12:28-31
When our love is divided up a hundred ways, we are pulled in a hundred directions, and we can’t truly love anything or anyone well—we can’t love wholeheartedly. But when love for God is our ruling affection, the love that undergirds every aspect of our lives, then all our loves are rich and right! The very love of God flows through us to everyone around us. Loving God with our whole selves, undividedly, is how we are able to truly love others and how we can be pure of heart.
Father God, please help me today to love you with my whole self: heart, soul, mind, and strength. Please reveal to me the areas of my life which I have not given completely to you. I want to have a pure heart, to be humble before you, and to come near to You so that You will come near to me. In Jesus name, amen.
God’s Life In Me
Monday, March 1st, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. -James 1:17
I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. -Galatians 2:20
We love because He loved us first. -1 John 4:19
“The goal of our life is to live with God forever.
God who loves us, gave us life.
Our own response of love allows God’s life to flow into
us without limit.
“All the things in this world are gifts of God,
presented to us so that we can know God more easily
and make a return of love more readily.
“As a result, we appreciate and use all of these gifts of God
insofar as they help us develop as loving persons.
But if any of these gifts become the center of our lives,
they displace God
and so hinder our growth toward our goal.
“In everyday life, then, we must hold ourselves in balance
before all of these created gifts insofar as we have a choice
and are not bound by some obligation.
We should not fix our desires on health or sickness,
wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or short one.
For everything has the potential of calling forth in us
a deeper response to our life in God.
“Our only desire and our one choice should be this:
I want and I choose what better
leads to the deepening of God’s life in me.”
-St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556)
Turning Over The Tables
Sunday, February 28th, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
This morning at Christ Community’s worship services, we will be focusing on the following passge. Would you read it and mediate on it?
Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, ” ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’”
The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.
“Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.
“Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read,
“‘From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise’?”
-Matthew 21:12-16
Isn’t it sad that the chief priests, who were the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, were indignant and unaccepting of what God was doing in their midst, yet the little children praised Jesus wholeheartedly? The chief priests were more interested in keeping their places of power in the status quo than in embracing what God was doing around them.
As you go to worship this morning, ask God to speak to you and give you an open heart. How does He want to change your priorities? Who is He asking you to show love to this week? What tables does He want to turn over in your heart? We have the choice to be like the chief priests or the children in this story—clinging to control and the status quo, or joyfully embracing what God wants to do. Which will you choose?
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