Do you Love or Desire?
[singlepic id=53 w=320 h=240 float=right]Chocolate Chip Cookies, Sex and Beer are three things that, until recently, I would have said “I love!” But a recent post by my friend and professor Dr. David Timms has challenged me with a quote from In Hope, “When we say “I love chocolate cake!” we deceive ourselves. We don’t love it. We want to eat it! If we loved it, we’d care for it.”
You see, one is focused on fulfilling another and the other is focused on fulfilling self. One is willing to be used and the other uses. One is miserly and the other charitable. One cherishes freedom and the other slavery.
When I desire someone or something I will get “it,” and hold onto “it” at any cost even if “it” doesn’t want to be held. I might rather destroy “it,” then allow anyone else the pleasure of having “it.”
Chocolate chip cookies, sex, and an ice cold beer are things I desire. If I get to the last beer or cookie I will seldom ask if anyone else wants it (Confession #1). I may even eat cookies in secret so as not to tip off the crowd in order to secure as many cookies as possible (Confession #2). I used to say I love chocolate chip cookies, but I am deceiving myself because who cares about what a cookie wants?
Sometimes I try to pass off my desire for sex as love for my wife (Confession #3). This is hard for me to type, but if I loved my wife I would be more concerned for her desire than my own. Sadly, I fail miserably at this.
And there is nothing better than a hot summer day and an ice cold Grolsch, or Yuengling, or Newcastle. In fact, forget hot and summer. Any day drinking one of those is going to lead to refreshment, but I don’t want to give anything to beer or sacrifice for it.
In this season of life I find myself in a state of some confusion about whether I desire or love Jesus. I have thought that I loved Him, but I have been asking a lot of Him lately: heal my Mom, heal Kasey’s baby, make a way for this adoption to happen, and now heal my brother and heal Kristi’s grandfather.
It never really occurred to me in the midst of this until now that I might show Jesus love if I just simply asked Him, “What would You have happen Lord? What would You have me do?”
His answer may be, “Just continue to do what you are doing, keep asking,” but it may be something else. It’s the fear of the something else that keeps me from moving out of desire and into love.
Are you a user or lover of Jesus?
It’s a valid question. It’s one I need to wrestle with more.
Fill in the blanks with people and then with Jesus and answer the question: Do I love _____________ or do I desire _____________?
Now, with me, repent, and seek to love the Lord and desire Him only…only if He wants you to.
Thanks to David Timms for sparking this post.
Christians May Not Actually Be…A Game Changing Idea
This core value, which has really crystallized at Quest Community Church in Lexington, Kentucky, is one, in my humble opinion, every church in America needs to adopt.
People who say that they are Christians may not actually be known by Jesus. They may actually not be covered in His blood. They may actually be destined for Hell unless we begin to ponder this question.
How would we do weekends, or weekdays for that matter, differently if we assumed that almost everybody attending a worship service, Bible study, small group, or cookout were not Christians?
I have a deep unsettling passion that the reason American culture continues to look less like Jesus is because many, if not most, of the people who attend mass or a worship service in churches around the country say that they are Christian while in reality the risen Son of God, Messiah, Jesus has not been embraced by them.
They have accepted an idea in lieu of embracing a person. Their fruit is rotten (Matthew 12:33).
Pete Hise, pastor of Quest, had six minutes to share about this core value. It’s worth six minutes of your time to watch, listen, and ask yourself whether or not you’ll be standing in a Matthew 7 line.
23 Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you. Go away from me, you lawbreakers!’“
Pete likes the NLT, but I am loving the NET these days and I think that there is significance to being called a lawbreaker in light of the atoning death of Jesus. So, are you sure that you’ll not be standing in a Matthew 7 line? You cannot be called a lawbreaker if Jesus’ blood is on you. Have you been washed in His blood? If not leave me a comment, or pull me aside, or send me a note. Let’s talk about it.
Silver Bullet Ministry Kills
Posting on a Friday has never been a good idea for me. No one reads blogs on Fridays or Saturdays or Sundays. So, I may re-post this on Tuesday, but just felt like I needed to put this out there.
In ministry I always tried to look for the Silver Bullet. Made famous by the tales of werewolves I wanted to hunt down and kill ministry for the sake of fame, fortune, and self. I wanted to find THE Way to do the ministry and then settle into a routine. What I have discovered is that there are no silver bullets.
A Way may exist, but it will likely change for the next person to whom you need to minister, or it will change in a year or at the most two. In essence, my passionate search for Silver Bullets killed my ability to do ministry. Now that I am beginning to accept that a couple of things become absolutely clear about ministry.
1. There is a whole lot of freaking work to do! I mean if how you do ministry changes with every person, or every year, then the necessity to be a lifelong learner becomes a must.
2. There is a whole lot of freaking work to do! I mean if how you do ministry changes with every person, or every year, then you need to get some help. The older you get the more you already know how things work in the world. It’s called cynicism. The younger you are the less you care about how, and the more passionate you are about what needs to happen. My job becomes guiding passion, and in the mean time I might even regain some passion. I’ve quoted Seth Godin’s views bellow on this subject.
3. There is a whole lot of freaking work to do! I mean if how you do ministry changes with every person, or every year, then you need to pray. Pray for yourself, pray for your help, pray for those you help and who help you.
This is the hardest discipline for me to take time to do because I am a do guy. I mean I pray during my commute so I can get two things done at once. Sad, isn’t it. I’m in the process of letting Jesus change that in me.
4. There is a whole lot of freaking work to do…in me! Do not lose sight of the fact that while in the process of serving others you neglect what the Spirit is saying to you about what needs to change in you.
5. Don’t let the amount of work trump the individual. In ministry we cannot be led to do something in order to get the most bang for our buck. We must be able to be present with people, and more specifically with one person. It’s the spiritual discipline of fellowship, and if we choose to give our affection to the event over the person, then we have made the wrong choice. I need to read what I just wrote every day.
A newly-retired executive takes a job as an adjunct professor and really shakes things up. Both the school and the students are blown away by her fresh thinking and new approaches.
A forty-year old internet executive who has been running his company for decades misses one new trend after another, because he’s still living in 1998.
One thing that happens to management when they get senior is that they get stuck. (As we saw with the new professor, senior isn’t about old, it’s about how long you’ve been there).
If you’ve been doing it forever, you discover (but may not realize) that the things that got you this power are no longer dependable.
Reliance on the tried and true can backfire (Rupert keeps missing one opportunity after another, and keeps misunderstanding the medium he works in) or it can (rarely) pay off (Steve Jobs keeps repeating the same business model again and again–it’s not an accident that Apple has no real online or social media footprint. Steve believes in beautifully designed objects, closed systems and evangelizing to developers and creatives).
Worth quoting–one of Arthur C. Clarke’s lesser known three laws: “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong.”
The paradox is that by the time you get to be senior, the decisions that matter the most are the ones that would be best made made by people who are junior…
