In Pursuit of the Kingdom

Following Jesus is the great adventure. Most Christians understand that. But what happens when your journey doesn't look like what your friends have come to understand as the model paradigm? What happens when your journey seems to be filled with fits and starts? What happens when Jesus calls you to a decision that makes no sense? What happens when your pursuit of Him does not take you closer to security and the American dream? What happens when He sends you to a part of the world that you know nothing about? What happens when your family begins to think you have gone off the deep end? What happens when your next step is deemed irrational by those who love you?

A friend of mine recently shared with me his call to obscurity. He is a gifted preacher with a heart for the kingdom of God. A few years ago he and his wife heard God call them away from the place everyone thought he would end up at because that's where both their families are located. But instead, God sent them in the opposite direction, to another state, further from their roots. What did they do? They obeyed and they have never regretted it.

A few weeks ago a friend of mine told me that my first priority was to my family. I know what he meant, but for some reason it did not set right with me. What could possibly be wrong with that statement? Believe it or not, everything! Jesus actually said something very different in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 6:19-34 Jesus calls us to abandon all for Him and His priorities. This section of Scripture is filled with all or nothing language. The kingdom is all or nothing. The journey cannot be made in a half hearted manner.

"Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, THEN all these things will be added unto you" (6:33). What things? Food, clothing, drink (6:25 & 31). The last thing to occupy our thoughts is to be "How am I going to make it today?" The first thing is to be, "What is God up to and what role am I to play in His plan"? Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, that's to be my preoccupation, my obsession.

Okay, but how do I get there? How do I arrive at the place where the only thing that gives me comfort is pleasing Him? Everything around me mitigates against that sort of commitment- my friends, my culture, my fears, my own desires for success. Can I even get there from here? Is anyone willing to go with me? But even more important, Are You calling me to something deeper? Are You waiting for me to get tired of the status quo? Will You become my status quo?

Help me to let go of everything that keeps me from following You.  

Maundy Thursday

Last night at the Maundy Thursday service I was reminded again of Jesus' road to greatness- servanthood. My ego is so strong, so large that I fear I have not really ever seen this in my own life. The road to greatness is with a towel and a basin, And these are only acessable to us after we have embraced the way of the Cross. In this life we cannot always do great things. But we can do small things with great love. - Mother Teresa

It's About Jesus

While preparing to preach Luke 4:16-30 I realized there have been many times when I have heard preachers begin well with this text (talking about Jesus), but end poorly (applying it to themselves and their calling). The heart of the text is Jesus defining His ministry, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. It is simply poor exegesis for a man to stand up, read this text and then use it as an excuse to hype his own calling. The text is about Jesus. Maybe if we hold Him up we will begin to see the captives released, the blind recovering sight, the downtrodden being set free, etc.

Wake Up Church, the Children Need You!

I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet (Amos 7:14), but I believe that God has called the Church to function with a ‘Sons of Issachar’ anointing in our day. 1 Chronicles 12:32 tells us about, “…the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what should be done...” These were men from one tribe who had the ability to see the world for what it was and lead God’s people to respond according to His will. They knew the word of God, they understood the times, the culture, the zeitgeist and they knew what a godly response to the movement of the culture should look like. And then they acted. Knowledge without the willingness to obey is useless. We need men and women like this today. People who see, discern, pray and act.

 Based on what is happening to the family today, things like the increase in divorce, the redefining of marriage, the redefining of the family, the increase in the acceptance of sexual promiscuity and the rise of gender confusion, all these things and more mean that the opportunity for the Church to raise Christ’s banner high are going to increase exponentially, but it will take “a people who know their God, display strength and take action (Daniel 11:32). A compromising Church will be useless in this fight.

Local ministries, here in Arkansas, like The Call and Immerse Arkansas have recently come into existence because God has awakened many to the fact that children are the biggest casualty in this war and as a result western society is buckling under the pressure of this satanic strategy. Children were not created to be warehoused in orphanages. They were designed to be raised by a loving father and mother. They were not created to be shuffled from home to home. These things damage and wound a child often to the point of permanently robbing them of their future. Will we Christians be content to continue ignoring the Enemies latest salvo or will we, like the Sons of Issachar recognize what is happening and develop righteous strategies to counter Satan’s assault on children and families?

What can we do? I do not claim to have all the answers, but here are a few things that can be done relatively easily. (1) Develop support groups within the local church to encourage and support families who have adopted or are serving as foster parents. (2) Intentionally provide funding to assist families who want to adopt. When a Christian family takes in a child that child is not only being adopted into that family, but that child is also being adopted into the people of God. (3) Encourage more Christians to prayerfully consider becoming foster parents.

Trust me when I say, things are not going to get better anytime soon. That is not the movement of our culture. And if we are content to be at ease in Zion (Amos 6:1) we will miss the crying need before us. This is a kingdom moment, what will we do with it?  

My Story of Betrayal

Rob Parker was recently suspended from ESPN for a month for basically questioning the "blackness" of RG3. Parker's comments seem to imply that being "black", in his world, means having a broken home and marrying inside your race and being politically liberal. The small mindedness and hypocrisy of some of these guys is amazing. Blacks who have assimilated (as much as that is possible) find that in some circles they are not "black enough" and in other circles we are "too white". I have decided that I am who I am and if someone doesn't like it they can deal with it.

Actually, I am not surprised by Parkers comments and those who think like him. But it does bother me when Christians don't get it. As a Christian, my first allegiance is to the New Nation (the people of God) that Christ grafted me into. If the Church began to walk in the reality of this truth we could finally lead the world with a vision of what a united humanity is capable of. United in what? United in Christ. But I do not expect that to happen before the second coming. We will continue to see glimpses of what could be from Christians committed to walking in love (I know a lot of these people), but there will always be racism and fear. Fear has always kept the Church from taking the lead on this issue and stepping out in faith.

A few years ago I was a part of a large evangelical denomination when I pastored in Memphis, TN. In less than a year I was maneuvered out of a pastoral position by white Christian men in my denomination. These men did not attend my church, but because they controlled the purse strings and apparently I crossed some unknown line with them I was out on the street. They "blessed me" with a six months severance and pressured me into resigning.

I had moved to Memphis in January of 2008 to pastor a church in the third poorest zip code in the United States and here I was on the first Sunday of Advent unemployed in a town I barely knew. I spent the next 18 months on food stamps, working odd jobs, living off savings and eventually we lost our home through foreclosure. This was done by my "brothers in Christ". It was a difficult time for my wife, son and four daughters, to say the least. 

No one ever confronted me to inform me that I was doing something wrong. They simply decided that I needed to go. One man actually pretended to be my friend for months before joining with these others to undercut me. I later met with a key black Christian leader in the city (at her request) and she informed me that she knew why I had been pushed out of my church. I was anxious to hear her theory. She said, "The uppity black man came down from the north (Baltimore) trying to tell us (powerful white Christian leaders) how to run our business." I later found out that the men who planned my demise and sat in the room determining my severance package were pastors and elders in my own presbytery. Not one person in my presbytery came to my aid. After getting rid of me they brought in a less experienced younger black man from the south to replace me.  

I learned many lessons through this ordeal, but I think the biggest lesson was how men who profess Christ are willing to manipulate systems to accomplish their ends and justify their behavior to themselves. These men operated in the darkness to harm me and my family and stood in their pulpits weekly preaching the grace of God.

I still feel the pain of this betrayal, but I am glad it happened. Had it not happened I would not be ministering where I am today. God takes us through things that will build our trust in Him. People (the Church included) are very messed up, but I remind myself that Jesus came precisely because of that fact.

Leading with Conviction

I am currently reading several books (I usually read more than one at a time, not because I am such a wonderful reader, but because I have a short attention span.), but one book has captivated my attention to such an extent that I must finish it before I read any more in the others. That book is Albert Mohler’s The Conviction to Lead.

I have long realized that leadership is a vital key to any organization, but especially to the Church. As I sit down to write this article I am half way through Dr. Mohlers book and I am finding it to be a tremendous asset to my understanding of leadership and a challenge to me personally.

Chapter two is titled, Convictional Intelligence. In chapter two Mohler wants his readers to realize that a true leader must develop the capacity to think in convictional terms. And by that he means that a leader must believe in something and have the ability to transmit his belief to others. This belief must be a passionate one.

Mohler alludes to the recent discovery that humans have various types of intelligences. I had heard of some of the types of intelligences that Mohler mentions like financial intelligence, musical intelligence, emotional intelligence, etc., but I had never heard of convictional intelligence. Convictional intelligence is not something that we are born with. It is something that all of us need to develop. Convictional intelligence is the result of learning (this includes practicing what we know) the Christian faith, plumbing the depths of God’s Word and discovering what it means to think and behave like a Christian, renewing the mind, if you will.

How does one develop convictional intelligence? For Mohler there is nothing mysterious about it. Convictional intelligence is not developed in isolation, it is developed through what the Church has come to refer to as “the ordinary means of grace”. “God”, says Mohler, “Wants His people to possess convictional intelligence and the fullness of the Christian life, and these come by hearing the Word of God preached, celebrating the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and living in the fellowship of believers in a faithful local church” (36). These are the ordinary means of grace. He goes on to say, “This is extended through the leader’s personal devotional life, prayer, Bible reading, and reading other Christian books and materials”. These graces mold and shape us into men and women formed by the truth of God’s Word. This shaping instills convictions within us and those convictions automatically kick in whenever we are confronted with decisions of any type. Through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit these new convictions come to bear on our daily choices. Leaders especially need to be shaped by strong convictions whose origins can be traced back to the Scripture.

One of the areas I am constantly seeking to mature in is leadership. I can safely say that being here at St. Andrew’s  has been used by God to address that desire within me. I have experienced and continue to experience the truth of what Mohler says when he writes, of the importance of “living in the fellowship of believers in a faithful local church”. I thank God for my church daily! It has been the source of meaning spiritual growth in my life. Personal growth happens in community. Especially personal growth as a leader.

 

 

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