The ambassadors commitment

As I come close to finishing the first week of The Hole in our Gospel, I can say that I have been uprooted from my former way of thinking. Not only my paradigm; but also, my faith has been shifted. I have come to a point of realizing that my belief is not enough, my worship is not enough, and my personal morality is not enough. I know that God is asking more of me (he wants all of me).

My commitment to Jesus is sharing the good news; his character of love, justice, and mercy-all through our words and actions is a commitment to Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5:20 kept getting to me as it was repeatedly popping up in Richard Stearns book, and small group study. It says, “So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”

Because of this study, I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions, but here are a few:
What exactly does “ambassador of Christ mean?!”
Is this something I do or something I am, or become?

All I know right now is that Jesus chooses us to represent him, to proclaim the GOOD NEWS, and to change the world or just one person (read quote below). “Living out our faith privately was never meant to be an option.”

“If you can’t feed 100 people, then just feed one.”
-Mother Teresa

Ethics

I just finished reading T Burton Pierce’s, Ministerial Ethics: A Guide for Spiritual-Filled Leaders. It was really good! It challenged me on a few different levels. My favorite chapter dealt with being authentic in your ministry. He talked about how our love for the people that we are leading to be evident. It has to be evident for assurance, but mainly because you love them just as Christ loves them. I love that. That is something that God has been teaching me the last few days.

I had to take a few minutes to think about this: I know his love and I know his power to do miracles, but do I show it the way God intended for me to show it?

I wasn’t positive of the answer and I’m still not at all. I have a lot of work to do.

Over the past 24 hours my heart has been on a roller coaster. I just started the six-week quest, The Hole in our Gospel (small group study). Going in to it I was unsure what God wanted to do in me. I was also unsure what he was going to do in my heart, but I knew it would be big. I thought it was going to take time. But once again I was wrong. My heart was broken immediately.

Some of you are probably wondering what the “hole in our gospel” could be. Don’t worry I was thinking the same thing.

Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision, first provoked my mind and then shortly after my heart followed, but in my heart it was a deeper provoking. In the first chapter of his book, The Hole in Our Gospel, he shared a story about his friend, Jim Wallis, who, at this time, was a seminary student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School near Chicago. He and some of his classmates had an idea. They went through the entire Bible and underlined every single verse that dealt with poverty, wealth, justice, and oppression. Then they took scissors and cut every one of those verses out of the Bible. After that the Bible barely held together. The remaining Bible was in shambles. Then his friend said, “Brothers and sisters, this is our American Bible; it is full of holes. Each one of us might as well take our Bibles, a pair of scissors, and begin cutting out all the scriptures we pay no attention to, all the biblical text that we just ignore.” The bible was literally full of holes. The word hole is defined: A hollowed place in something solid.

Questions that I had to ask myself:

Is there a hole in my “gospel/good news”?

Is my understanding of the nature of God’s call misunderstood?

I realized that I have chosen to pay little to no attention to holes in my Bible. I need to pay attention to the whole Bible. Every single word of God matters, not just the ones that apply to my life at this moment in time (it is all applicable).
The challenge for me, and possibly you as well: Getting what I know in my head into my heart and then out to my hands and feet - showing the love of Christ in a tangible way.

“Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out on to the earth. Yours are the feet by which he is to go about doing good and yours are the hands by which he is to bless us now.”
-St. Teresa of Avila

Serve

With Servolution coming up I have been thinking a lot about serving, and the different ways to serve. Now I’m finally starting to come to terms with the calling of service. Serving should be my mindset all of the time. Not just the few times a year that I get to be a part of a group of people who are making a point to serve others in need, but everyday, 24-7.

If I want to be great I must serve. Serving must be my life. Sold out to Christ, who calls me to put others before myself completely. Jesus says, “Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to be first must be our slave- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life random for many” (Matthew 20:26-27).

This is crazy for me to think about. Earlier in this passage, the mother of Zebedee was faced with a decision, and Jesus asked, “Is this what you want?” In order to be completely sold out to Jesus, we have to decide that we are going to be great in the Lords presence we have to simply serve.

Learning to fail

I recently read an article called Failing Forward, by Mark Batterson. It really challenged me. Right off the bat he says, “If we allow our failures to define us, they can ruin us. But failure handled properly is the best thing that can happen.” Anytime that I have “failed” at something I have always gotten really discouraged. But it wasn’t until I read this article that I asked myself a series of questions: Did God plan on my failure? Or did my inexperience cause me to fail? What was the purpose of this failure and what do I need to do to avoid the same outcome?

I want to make the most of every situation, and lesson. So in order to make the most of every situation, I have to ask myself these questions and constantly evaluate my life. I also have to get to the point of my life where I am more afraid of missing opportunities of “teachable moments” than making mistakes.

Mardi Gras '10

The other students and I just returned from a missions outreach in New Orleans, LA. This is my second year, and their first. Let me just say that I went in to this with no expectation except that God was going to totally shift my mind completely, and move in radical ways.

The amount of people that attended from other churches and schools was pretty intense. All together there were about 340 people telling people about Christ on the streets of Mardi Gras. It was amazing. Before we headed to the streets the leadership of the outreach prepared us. They sent us out two by two (guy and girl) just like Jesus sent out the Seventy-two. Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves (Luke 10:1-4).

They were sending us out to win people to Christ by his love. One major thing that I learned from this trip is that we should leave our house every morning with the same purpose, just as we left the place that we were staying to go minister to people on the streets. It became so real to me. Jesus is who I live my whole life for, so why was it so hard to bring him up in conversations with people? Not just the people that I will never see again at Mardi Gras, but people that I see everyday- my family, or the people that I have a relationship with and surrounded by.

Jesus moved in and through us as we ministered to people. His glory was shown through the abundance of our weakness, and people were saved. Their lives are being transformed. There is no reason that the people of my everyday life cannot share in the same joy.

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Matthew 18:15-17 says, “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ever matter will be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, treat him as your would a pagan or tax collector.”

Yes, Jesus is talking about solving disputes. This is how disputes of any kind should be approached. We have recently learned what the apostles did when it came to division in the church. The first step that they took was recognizing the problem. One thing that happens when we ignore problems is that they only get worse. A step that they took that goes along with recognizing the problem is making sure that it is a legitimate problem. You just have to have wisdom when it comes to this.

One major thing, the apostles did not blame anyone or take any sides. They were able to take the fingers that were pointing and place them on finding a solution. When we are placed in the middle of a dispute we have to keep things fare.
Another way that they were able to see disputes through was through the understanding and willingness of change. Adjustment is needed to happen to fix any problem, or grow in any way.

The last thing that the apostles did was delegate authority. You would hand this job over to those who are available, capable, and qualified. Once you turn it over, give them your focus in prayer.