It's time to be the people of God

I couldn't sleep so I got up and read the last 10 chapters of Romans. Wow, a lot of wonderful truths are contained in this powerful letter!

Believe it or not, chapter 16 brought me to tears. Yes, I know that's the chapter with all the greetings. "Hello from all us here and please say hello to all those I know in Rome," Paul says (paraphrased of course).

What's so beautiful about all these hellos is the marvelous nature of what it means to be the people of God. Often when we are exorted to "be the people of God" the emphasis is on the God portion. Today I want to exhort you with an emphasis on the "people" part, because to call God "Abba" (Romans 8:15) is to call many brother and sister.

Being God's people means working together. "Greet Pricilla and Aquilla my fellow workers in Christ" (16:3). "Greet Mary, who worked very hard for you" (16:6). "Greet Urbanos, our co-worker in Christ" (16:9). There's more, but I think you get the picture. Our Father, as Jesus put it, is always at work (John 5:17) and as his people we need to be working in the family business. This means working together.

Being God's people means affirming one another. Notice Paul's words of encouragement and recognition: "they are outstanding among the apostles (16:7), "my dear friend in the Lord" (16:8), "whose fidelity to Christ has stood the test" (16:10). One of the purposes of the church to love and build it up the church, not tear it down. "A house divided against itself cannot stand" (Mark 3:25) and a church divided against itself cannot stand. We must be a people who build each other up, yes in our local communities, but also broadly. We are not a perfect people and it is fine and good to recognize our faults so that the Holy Spirit can do his work in us. Yet, we must be careful of caustic criticism that is devoid of all love and grace. The days are coming, and I believe are already here, when we will have many enemies from without, let us not have enemies within.

Being God's people means practicing hospitality. "Gauis, whose hospitality I and the whole church here enjoy..." (16:23). Now this may not sound as spiritual as the first two, but bear with me. It may be the most spiritual of all. To practice hospitality is to share and sharing is a manifestation of the love of God. It is truly supernatural beause the natural is selfish. We can work together and build each other up and still remain a group of individuals . Yet, when we share, we put to death the old man, and give expression to very essence of the gospel, sacrificial giving. If we want the power of the New Testament church, we must live in community as they did. Practicing hospitality is especially important today as so many of our brothers and sisters are struggling financially. If we do not love and care for our own, we discredit the gospel we preach. So I encourage you to practice radical hospitality.

I encourage you to build each other up, radically. I encourage you to put aside your differences and work together to preach the gospel to all nations. Basically, I encourage you to be the people of God.

What do you hunger for?

Appetite tells a lot about a person. When it comes to food, I often crave mangoes, fried plantains, and guava pastries. This definitely makes me a Cuban!

How about you? What do you crave? What are you hungry for?

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work." (John 4:34). Jesus hungered to see the Father's will accomplished. He craved to complete the purpose for which he was sent.

So what do you hunger for? Are you hungry for the will of God to come to pass in and through your life? Are you hungry to DO His will? Are you craving his Kingdom? Are you hungry for the things He is hungry for?

I think hunger is a good way to evaluate our true spiritual state. You see the reason I love mangoes, plantains, and guava (and you might not) is that I have spent a lifetime (40+ years) developing a taste for these foods. The truth is we hunger for the things we feed on. Strange but true. Jesus fed himself on doing the Father's will, so this is what he hungered for.

Perhaps you don't hunger for God's kingdom, or his will, or the salvation of the lost. Obviously you've been eating other foods. Today, you can make a choice to begin feeding on new food.

Some people say, "you either like something or you don't." I don't agree with this. The truth is while I was given a head start liking mangoes, as a kid I did NOT like greenbeans, celery, spinach, or most any green vegetable. When I became an adult I realized these things were good for me, whether I liked them or not. So I taught myself to like them. How did I do that? BY EATING THEM! Remember what you feed on you will eventually develop a taste for: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Today, develop a taste for the Father's will. Start feeding on it. Feed on that which you know is his will and soon you will hunger for it, more than I hunger for plantains (which is saying A LOT!).

About Shame

Shame is not something you hear talked about much these days. It seems out of fashion somehow. Though of course, it is still very much around, just not talked about.

One definition of shame is " the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc, done by oneself or another. " There are of course things that are shameful. Sin for example, is shameful. That is why one often feels shame after sinning.

Shame can also be produced by others actions upon us. It is sad, but many live in shame not because of their sin, but because of the sins committed against them.

I guess one of the most shameful things that a person can experience is pubic execution. I'm talking about a humiliating, excruciatingly painful, public execution where one is taunted, ridiculed, and physically exposed. Such an experience would definitely be called shameful. I think it would definitely make it into David Letterman's or anyone else's top ten most shameful moments of history.

Yet, in Hebrews we are told of Jesus endured such a top ten moment "scorning its shame." Yes, it was shameful, but Jesus scorned, despised, disregarded, thought little of, the shame, instead he thought of the joy.

So today let this encourage you in two ways:

One, remember that you are part of the joy for which Jesus endured the cross. If you have not submitted your life to him yet, what are you waiting for?

Two, scorn some shame today. It may not be public execution, but it may be ridicule or simple rejection. Scorn it! Then you'll be able to say with the apostle, "I am not ashamed..."

The Discipline of Thanksgiving

Psalm 69:30 declares "I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving."

The first verse of this psalm stands in contrast as the psalmist cries out, "save me oh God for the water is up to my neck."

It can be very difficult to be thankful in difficult times. On the other hand, I find that it can also be difficult to be thankful in good times. I guess the truth is, its just hard to be thankful- period. We are a complaining society much more than a grateful people.

That's why I call thanksgiving, a discipline. Its takes as much will power to be thankful as it takes to get up in the morning and work out. Yet, millions of people exercise daily for the benefit it gives their body. Why don't we, exercise our spirits by practicing the discipline of thanksgiving. It's simple, just finish this sentence, "thank you for..." 10 reps, 5 sets.

From the Miraculous to the Mundane

This week I read 1 Chronicles. Have you read 1Chronicles lately? The first nine chapters are geneologies. Yes that's right NINE chapters of geneologies. Talking about boring and mundane. Yet as I read through them the Holy Spirit reminded me that all the names I was reading were the result of a miracle.

You see God made a promise to Abram that he would have descendants like the stars in the sea and that these descendants would come through his wife Sarai, who was then old and past childbearing. The idea was so inconcevable that Sarai laughed. Yet, one year later Sarai (now called Sarah) gave birth to a son and named his Isaac. It was a miracle!

Yet just a few hundred years later the miracle had turned mundane. Just a long list of names that seems to go on and on. What a sad commentary this is on our human nature. We so quickly forget the miraculous.

I have two wonderful children who are truly miracles to God for us. After 11 years of battling infertility God gave us these two children in two year, the first one without any work on our part whatsoever. We did not register with an agency, talk to a lawyer, talk to friends. Nothing! It was a miracle. On a daily basis, however, things feel more mundane than they do miraculous. Why?

How do we move from that wonderful feeling of "THANK YOU GOD. YOU ARE SO AWESOME. YOU ARE SO GREAT. YOU HAVE DONE GREAT THINGS FOR ME," to, "What would make you want to poke all our leader furniture with a knife? Why do you say such mean things to your grandmother? WHY ARE THESE KIDS SO OUR OF CONTROL? etc, etc, etc?" What makes us move from the miraculous to the mundane? I think its a lack of thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is the practice of saying THANK YOU to God. Its the practice of being grateful. When we are grateful we remember how good God has been to us, because we place our focus on his goodness. Complaining is the direct opposite of gratitude. It makes our lives feel mundane. Giving thanks reminds us that our lives are actually full of miracles!

Love and Hate

What is the core of loving God? Hundreds have written, sung, and debated this for centuries. Here's my addition to the subject. It is loving what he loves and hating what he hates.

What does God love? People. People. People. "We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen" (1 John 4:19-20). Yes, we must love our brother. Love the way our Father loves, sacrificially, laying our lives down for one another.

Loving people also means loving him who is not our brother. Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (Matthew 9:12-14). No matter how difficult it is for us to believe God really does love wicked, vile, people. He loves them so much he refuses to leave them wicked and vile. If we love God we will also love this way.

Yet it is not enough to love the things God loves, we must also hate the things he hates. You cannot read the Bible without noticing there are A LOT OF THINGS GOD HATES. Things he calls "detestable" and "abominable." The list is too long to enumerate but can be summed up with words such as idolotry, immorality, abuse, and injustice.

We've all heard the saying, "love the sinner, hate the sin." Unfortunately, this saying is somewhat out of favor as being somewhat impossible to do. Yet our Father does both with such passion and zeal, it puts us to shame. I'm sure a mother can love her son while hating the drugs that are destroying his life. She does not feel any sense of hypocrisy for hating his addiction with every fiber of her being. Actually, her hatred is a sign of her love. For we hate that which destroys someone we love.

Yes, there are those who treat people shamefully in the name of hating sin. We are right to reject such an example even as our Lord did. But that does not mean that we are to embrace the converse. Loving people without loving them out of the sin that is destroying them, is love in name only. While the radical middle may seem elusive, it can be found by simply loving God and allowing His Spirit to live his life through us.

Why are people so self-centered?

Ever asked yourself this question? About someone else of course. It's other people who are self-centered, never YOU!

The unfortunate truth is human beings by nature think of themselves first, and think of themselves often. The truth is, self-centerdness is the human auto pilot. That's who we are when we are born (been around a baby lately?) You can blame it on biology, technology, or sin. It doesn't really matter. The result is the same. The truth is I am self-centered and if you are honest you'll admit so are you. So what do you, I mean we, do about it?

First you have to decide you want to do something about it. This is a value decision. Perhaps you like being self-centered. After all in this context YOU are in the CENTER! On the other hand YOU in the center may not be working out so great for you, so you say, "Yeh, I don't want to be self-centered any more." This is a good start.

You could decide just to be more other-centered. In other words, value others more than you value yourself. Personally speaking, I find it difficult to value others more than myself. I'm just not as concerned about others as I am about ME! I don't think about others as much as a think about ME! I don't think I love others, quite as much as I love ME! I guess its cause I'm around ME so often, all the time actually. So this really doesn't work for me. It might work for you, and if it does, don't let me discourage you. Go ahead...

What does work for me is being Christ-centered. You see, I do value him more than myself, because the truth is he IS more valuable. The first reason being He is God and I'm not. Forget reasons 2-10,000. I don't really think they matter much once we establish reason #1.

Jesus once said, "You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me." This too is a value statement. A woman had poured a box of very expensive perfume over Jesus. One his followers, one of his closest actually, objected saying, "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages." Unfortunately, his motives were not exactly pure. The writer lets us in on the secret that this fellow, actually the treasurer of the group, did not say this "because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it." Putting all this drama aside, Jesus reply is still extremely interesting. He basically says, the best use for this extremely costly item is not the care of the poor but ME!!!

Now before you accuse Jesus of being self-centered, something that a person who lays down his life for the sins of the WHOLE WORLD is probably NOT guilty of. Think about this. Jesus knew who he was and his value. He IS more valuable than the poor and one of the ways we can demonstrate His value to us as believers is to care for the poor, feed the hungry, practice hospitality, and in general be other-focused. You see when you focus on Christ, you end up focusing on those He focused on- OTHERS! This does work for me. Try it! It might work for you too.