Being Involved With People Who…

I am on a journey. This journey has a destination. The destination is to really deeply know Jesus. I am enjoying the journey. I have not yet reached my destination and I am not sure I ever will. That is okay. The journey is exciting and worth it. I don’t suffer from “destination disease” because those who do miss the fun of the journey.

I am on a journey to know Jesus better than I do - in fact, to know Him deeply and passionately. I want to experience Him in fresh and new ways. I want to be a part of a people who delight in him like those I work with in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. They have so little yet they have everything - they have Jesus in a way that we don’t and won’t unless…

I want to be a part of a people who are risking it all for Him. For the sake of more than 5 billion people who have yet to hear the Gospel, I want to risk it all. For the sake of those in bondage to religion I want to risk it all. For the sake of the 26,000 children who will die today of starvation or a preventable disease, I want to risk it all. For the sake of an increasingly marginalized and relatively ineffective church in our culture, I want to risk it all. For the sake of my life, my family, and the people who surround me, I want to risk it all.

This requires that I reorient my life around radical abandonment to Jesus. This requires that I place my hopes and dreams into the hands of Jesus and allow Him to totally change and convert them into His plan and purpose for my life. I want everything I am, do, and think converted into a radical faith in a radical Savior. This may mean I will have less time for those who are simply “playing church” and playing with the eternal destiny of others not to mention their own eternal destiny.

If you want to take this journey with me; if you want to undergo a radical alteration and transformation there are two big questions you need to ask yourself. I am asking myself the same two questions.

1> Am I willing to commit to simply believe whatever Jesus says - in His Word and in my heart? As a Christian, it would be a grave mistake to come to Jesus and say, “Let me hear what you have to say, and then I will decide whether or not I like it.” If you approach Jesus this way, you will never truly hear what He has to say - from His written Word or His spoken Word in the stillness of your heart. You have to say yes to the words of Jesus before you even hear them.

2> Then second, you need to commit to obey what you have heard. The Gospel does not prompt you to mere reflection; the Gospel requires a response. In the process of hearing Jesus, you are compelled to take an honest look at your life, your family, and your church and not just ask, “What is He saying?” but also ask, “What shall I do with what He is saying?”

This means embracing Jesus for whom He really is - not who we wish or hope He will be for us. It will mean disassemblying our self-made image of Jesus and thus our Heavenly Father. In other words, embracing Him for who He really is, not for who we have created Him to be. It will mean taking a hard look at the core truth of a God-centered Gospel and seeing how we have manipulated it into human-centered (and ultimately dissatisfying) message. It will mean radical change resulting in radical abandonment to fully follow a radical Jesus.

Want to join me?