A desperately neglected one....

Marriage...it's a word that carries layers of understanding and expectations.  When someone tells you they are "married," it immediately calls to mind a wealth of information.  In it's ideal, God-given state, saying this means, "I am committed to someone outside myself.  I love and cherish another human being above my own well-being and happiness.  In fact, my happiness comes from putting this other human first in my life.  Every decision I make impacts directly and intimately another human being, and so every decision I make necessarily takes into consideration that person and the potential impact on them.  Everything I do takes into consideration that other person, their wants and desires, their joys and sorrows.  This inherently means I will not do things I might have done as a bachelor because my relationship with that person has realigned my priorities.  My desires must be tempered by the knowledge of the other person in my life."

In the same way, the word faith is not a word that stands alone.  Faith is not an end in itself, nor the object of our attention.  Faith describes a relationship, a relationship that is deeper, longer-lasting, and more powerful than even the relationship contained in the word marriage.  When you say "I have faith in Christ" or "I am a Christian" or "I am growing in my faith," you are saying, "By the grace of God, I am committed to someone outside myself.  I love and cherish this man/God, Jesus, above my own well-being and immediate happiness.  In fact, my happiness is defined by putting Him first in my life.  Every decision I make directly and intimately reflects upon this object of love and passion, Jesus.  Therefore, every decision I make necessarily takes into consideration Him and the potential impact it has on our relationship.  Everything I do takes into consideration my Savior, His wants and desires, His joys and sorrows.  This inherently means I will not do things I might have done before I found out about His love for me because our relationship has realigned my priorities.  My desires must be tempered by the knowledge of Jesus' presence in my life."

So in the church, when we say that being a "Christian" is about more than checking your name on the metaphorical attendance roster for Sunday or simply paying lipservice by saying, "I'm a Christian," that's what we mean.  We aren't saying your lifestyle and priorities in any way determine Christ's love for you or provide for your salvation; what we are saying is they say a lot about whether there is a relationship.  Remember what I said about marriage?  How long will that be the definition of your marriage if that other person is the focus of your life for a mere hour a week, no matter how desperately your neglected spouse continues to pursue you?  It will end, not because they walk away... but because you did.  People should be able to tell if you're married.... and they should be able to tell you are in love with Christ.

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.  Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."

 -Galatians 5:22-25(NIV)

I'll give you everything....

In the events of Matthew 4:1-11, Jesus was hungry, starving, exhausted and hot, wandering the wilderness of Judea.  For forty days, he had nothing to eat... and in that moment of absolute physical weakness, Satan believed he had an opportunity to derail Jesus.  He wanted to cause Jesus to stumble, to sin.  After all, it would take only what we would think of as the "smallest of sins" on Jesus' part to annihilate any hope for mankind.  The only reason Jesus could die on the cross and take away all our sins, and the punishment that came with them, is because He is sinless.  One misstep and humanity has lost salvation and the chance to be defined, not by our failings, but by God's perfection.  It had worked with Adam, so Satan thought he could swing it again with Jesus.

I find his third, and final, attempt to cause Jesus to sin particularly interesting:

"Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.  'All this I will give you,' he said, 'if you will bow down and worship me.'" 

- Matthew 4:8-9(NIV)

Satan promised to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world - that means he offered Jesus Rome in the height of its power, the Chinese empire under the Han dynasty, the Kushan Empire, the 3 Kingdoms of Korea, Yayoi Japan, all the tribes of Africa and North America... essentially, Satan offered the whole of the world to Jesus, just for the "teeny-tiny" price of worshiping the Father of Lies.  

What I find interesting is that Satan offers Jesus something that is not his to provide.  Genesis 2:4(NIV) states that "the LORD God made the earth and the heavens," i.e., God made everything.  That means everything is His and all that we might perceive we "have" is something God has given to us.  So how can Satan offer the kingdoms of this world?  Jesus, who states "I and the Father are one" in John 10:30(NIV), already possesses all the world.

But isn't that how Satan always works?  He offers us ANYTHING and EVERYTHING so that we will go along with his little whispered suggestions in our ear.  He offers you FUN; he offers you JOY; he offers you LOVE; he offers you SATISFACTION; he offers you PEACE; he offers you MEANING; he offers you PLEASURE... he suggests that a life in Christ can't give you this.  "Jesus is boring; Jesus isn't fun; Jesus can't give you the love you need; if you follow Jesus you can't HAVE what you really want and need; Jesus only makes demands, He can't give you peace..." Satan whispers... and over and over again we buy it.  With our words and actions we bow down and worship the things of this life, convinced they will give us fun, joy, love, satisfaction, peace, meaning, pleasure... but these are things that are not Satan's to provide.

"Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters.  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 1:16-17(NIV)

This world can never provide you with the desires of your heart.  The things that are offered here are pale, weak imitations of the life God wants to give you, of the life Jesus died to give you.  You know what Jesus said to Satan's offer?

"Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” 

- Matthew 4:10(NIV)

Good isn't enough....

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.  You are the light of the world.  A city on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." - Matthew 5:13-16(NIV)

If all I have done with my life is convince others that I am a good person, a person to be trusted, than I have utterly, miserably failed in the one calling around which all the rest of my life was supposed to circle.  If the "good deeds" of this life that I carried out were credited only to me, than I "missed the mark."  All the praise and the accolade I may receive to my person is meaningless, unless it is turned heavenward.

"In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." - Matthew 5:16(NIV)

I have spent most of my life being involved in volunteer or professional ministry in the church.  Outside of that circle, as a Christian my life is supposed to be a light in a world corrupted by sin.  I am to serve others because Christ serves others.  I am to love others because Christ loves others.  NONE of these things are supposed to point to ME but to HIM WHO SENT ME!

I was told by a non-Christian friend of mine that, though this person does not believe, he knows I'm "one of the good guys."  At first, I was flattered... naturally I was!  But as I thought about it... about the implications, I wondered, "What if that was all he ever got from me, that I was 'one of the good guys?'  What if all he ever saw was me, when it was only Jesus who could change his life?  What if I have gotten in the way of the ministry God has given me?"  All the kindness I showed him in the world, all the care and discussion and friendship... would be meaningless.  Because at the end of the day he'd still be in hell, and I'd be the one who didn't "make the most of every opportunity" (Colossians 4:5).

And I guess that's the point I want you to take home as you read this; that is the HEART of the issue.  People live and die outside of the grace of Jesus every DAY!  As we go through our lives, there are people on the path to HELL that we pass right by because we're afraid to speak, afraid to be judged, afraid to be wrong or challenged or rejected.  It's like watching a man starve to death because we're afraid they won't like pb&j.

We hold the keys to LIFE people!  Look at the people that you pass every day.  Really look at them!  Look at the students in your class, the people on the sidewalk, the families at the mall or grocery store or at your sporting event.  The knowledge you have in Christ will save their lives.  All that is necessary is for you to speak!  

It's not enough that people like you or think you're a good person  At the end of the day, you cannot save them.  Only Christ can.  He is the one who stands in the brink; who bears us into the presence of God every day of our lives.  Don't be content to stand there and watch the dying pass.  Be the breath of life from God, Himself.

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.  To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God." - 2 Corinthians 2:14-17(NIV)

Calling obsessions....

People collect all sorts of things, from your standard, run-of-the-mill stamp or coin collection, to things a little more odd: like belly-button lint and celebrity hair (yes, people actually collect hair that once was connected to the scalps of famous people.)  If you're like me and have walked into an office lined with figurines from a much-loved TV series, then you know that sometimes our little collections can turn into obsessions.  Most of us have had at least one, and as long as you're not the collector who tackles famous people on their morning jog to make off with a hunk of hair, you're probably not hurting anyone with it.

However, there is an obsession we have in the Christian world that I think is causing harm, and we don't even recognize it.  That obsession... is our fixation on a concept known as "your calling."  Don't get me wrong, calling is an extremely important concept that is a part of the life of every believer, but it is my belief we have taken something that was supposed to be a blessing in our lives, as well as a means of blessing other people, and have made it into a burden on the necks of believers.

Before I explain my point, I want to highlight that I am working from a Lutheran (LCMS) perspective of calling, where "calling" equates to "vocation."  Vocation, from this perspective, is not necessarily what we could call a "career" or "job," though it does include those things.  More generally, vocation is  whatever legitimate labor we carry out in our day-to-day life, with a "legitimate labor" being any action we carry out that does not go against the life God has called us to in the Bible.

Already, this definition is touching on the point I'm trying to make.  We have convinced ourselves that "calling" implies the one thing in our lives that we were made to do, and until we are doing that one thing, we are in a sort of holding pattern where we are getting prepped to do that thing.  This leads us to thinking that, unless we're doing that "one thing," we are not engaged in things that truly matter or that we are not where we "need to be" at the moment.  Yet what does scripture actually say?  Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:31(NIV):

"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God."

Wait a minute...does that mean... that my eating and drinking are to God's glory?!  How can this be?!  As a Christian, when you eat a steak or carrot, who is benefiting?  Well, you, for one.  This food is being used to sustain the life of a person that scripture calls "the light of the world" (Matthew 4:14).  This food is allowing you to continue living, to go out into the world and shine the light of Christ into a world "in darkness" (John 12:25).  What is more, by eating, you are blessing everyone that worked to provide that food.  You bless the check-out lady at the grocery store, the stocker who put that food out on the shelves or in the cooler for you to buy, you're blessing the guy who manages the stocker and the check-out lady, you're blessing the guy who owns the grocery store, you're blessing the trucking company that shipped the food to the store, the trucker who drove the truck, the gas station attendant who the trucker paid to get the gas that runs the truck, the guy who owns the gas station, the guys who fix and maintain the truck, the guys who make the parts for the truck, the guys who ship the parts to the guys that fix and maintain the truck, the guys who ship the oil, the worker on the oil platform, the owner of the oil platform, the company that makes the parts for the oil platform, the engineers who designed the oil platform, the guys who build the oil platforms, the farmer who raised the cow or carrot you ate, the farmer who raised the feed the cow ate, the company that made the fertilizer for the carrot, the water company that the farmer buys water from to water his crops or cows, the company that makes the cars that all these people use to get to work or at work, all the way down to the kids and wives and husbands who wear clothes, buy their food, go to school, and have electricity because all the way down the line, a little Christian somewhere in the world bought a steak at the local grocer.  With one little action, as a Christian, you blessed thousands of people you will never know, just by living out the life God has given you.  Sure, you weren't preaching at the pulpit on Sunday morning or teaching kids arithmetic or shaping policy on capitol hill... but you were changing people's lives none-the-less.  Wherever you are, "whatever you do," you are living out "calling."

Now let's get on to the heart of the issue: the calling, if we must put it that way.  What about your career field?  What about that one thing you are trying to figure out you are supposed to do, as though God has this one thing for you to do, and if you don't find it your life was wasted.  One of the verses I hear cited a lot in support of this view is Jeremiah 29:11(NIV):

"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'"

This a beautiful passage, one that has given me hope in many very unpleasant situations, but I don't necessarily think we have understood this passage rightly when we have cited it to prove God has a specific plan for our lives in regards to that ONE career choice we need to make.  Keep in mind this was written in the Book of Jeremiah, an Old Testament book, and a prophetic book none-the-less.  This was written in a time when Israel was about to be conquered and enslaved by Babylon, and when Israel would be looking forward to a promised Messiah who would deliver them.  What I'm getting at is: Christ had not come yet, and this book was reminding people of the promise of His coming.  Wasn't Jesus God's ultimate "plan" for humanity's good?  Doesn't he allow for prosperity, doesn't He give us hope and a future we would otherwise not have?  In Christ, we have hope in the knowledge that God loves us and has done everything to bring us back into peace with Him.  We know that life does not end in death, but that we have eternal life with God.  We know that one day, all suffering and hardship will cease when God perfects all things.  These things ARE our promised hope and future.  Jesus was and is God's plan for us.

Does this mean I think God has no calling for us?  By no means!  But I think scripture more clearly supports that whatever God-pleasing thing we are doing right now is our calling.  We aren't waiting for some future thing to do with ourselves, we are living out calling every day.  

Now, legitimately, I won't say that means every Christian has a calling to do everything.  In 1 Corinthians 12, it is clear that not everyone has the same gifts, though they all are equally important to the whole of Christianity.  When God created you, He gave you certain gifts and abilities that are unique in the way they are combined in you.  Necessarily, then, there are certain things in life that you are more suited to than someone else with a different combination of gifts.  But that still does not mean there is only one thing by which you could serve God and humanity.  You have options, and as long as your focus is on using your gifts to serve God and other people, whatever you choose (even if it's different things over your lifetime), be assured you are living out your calling, and that God is using you to bless this world:

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him.  For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing." - 2 Corinthians 2:14-15(NIV)

Jeremiah 1:4-9...

During the installation service of our new pastor this past weekend, the first reading was from Jeremiah 1:4-9.  A part that particularly stood out to me was verses 6-9(ESV), "Then I said, 'Ah, Lord God!  Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.'  But the Lord said to me, 'Do not say, "I am only a youth"; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak.Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord.'Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, 'Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.'"  

From what I understand, we do not know exactly how old Jeremiah was when he says "I am only a youth."  However, judging from the perceptions of the time, he could have been anywhere from his mid-teens to mid-twenties when God called him as a prophet.  Let me type that again: he was the age of a high schooler to someone just completing college.  Let me say that another way: he was in the age group of people that are thought to "know nothing" today.

Where am I going with this?  You can probably see where I'm going, but I'm going to type it out anyway: you are never too young to make an impact for the Gospel.  You are never too young for God to use your faith to change peoples' lives.  Want to see proof of that?  In Matthew 18:1-6, Jesus uses a little child to teach the disciples humility and about how we should approach faith, and in Matthew 19:13-14, He states that the "kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these" about children, teaching us we should have the sort of trusting faith that a child does.

Now some of you may be saying, "But Jeremiah was a prophet.  They're a special sort of believer."  Granted, Jeremiah was called for a specific purpose, but that does not mean you are not similarly called to reach others with the Gospel of Christ.  At Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles as tongues of flame, Peter said this prophecy of Joel was fulfilled "In the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams" (Acts 2:17).  Just as God gave Jeremiah the ability to speak, so, too, God entered believers through the Holy Spirit in order that they would be empowered to speak the truth of Jesus to all people.  And this Holy Spirit was not just given to the Apostles, for Peter goes on to say, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself" (Acts 2:38-39).

Ultimately, the point I am making is this: as a Christian, God has called you to reach out to anyone in your life with the good news that God loved them so much that He sent his son, Jesus, to live a perfect human life and die a gruesome, human death, in order that when Jesus rose from the dead, He would ensure that all believers in Jesus would not be condemned for their failings, but would spend eternity in the presence of God.  It doesn't matter what age you are.  Don't be afraid.  Let your life as a Christian speak the truth of Who God is to the people in your life.  Trust that God will take your efforts, whatever they may be, and use them to change lives.  After all, remember whose Spirit makes you able to speak: the Spirit of God.  As the creator of language, He'll figure it out for you.