What did it mean in 1^st century Palestine for a young person to hear the words “Come, Follow Me” from a Jewish Rabbi?  It meant that he believed you could become like him.  For a young man in that culture, to hear those words would have been the greatest news possible – like being asked to be mentored by a famous rock star or professional athlete in today’s culture.  Disciples would follow their rabbi 24/7 for an extended period, imitating every single aspect of his life as part of the learning process to become like the teacher.

Part of your Identity in Christ is that of a disciple, and He believes you can become like Him.  Out of this Identity flows everything that you will do, every decision you will face, every experience you will have.  His will is for you to be an extension of the Trinity’s invitation here on earth so that the world might see your good works and glorify the Father in heaven – WHOMEVER you’re with or WHATEVER the environment or WHEREVER the situation in which you find yourself.

So . . . what if God doesn’t notice any ministerial difference in a pastor vs. a restaurant owner?  Most in Christendom certainly see these as totally different!  But, His ways aren’t like ours and He certainly didn’t choose the “ministerial” elite as His disciples whom He believed would change the world.  Look at his parables and interactions, and notice how many of the “heroes” were church leaders as we might think of them today.

What if the only difference between a missionary in Madrid, an engineer in Ethiopia, a teacher in Tokyo and a stay-at-home dad in Denmark is their sphere of influence, their unique gift mix, and their revelation of who they are in Christ?  From God’s perspective, perhaps the Spirit distributes gifts and functions and abilities into each of us so that we can learn to “follow Christ” in every area, every circumstance, every sphere of influence that we’ve been given.

In Ephesians 4 we read about the “5-fold” ministry gifts of apostle, prophet, teacher, pastor and evangelist.  Notice that these functional roles are “to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.”  “Ministry” is emphasized for the saints who are being equipped BY THOSE that we traditionally think of as ministers.  Interesting.  Let me suggest the following:

 

We are all commissioned by God to be full-time life-time ministers of His Beautiful Gospel

 

That’s each and every one of us!  Yes, I realize this might sound confrontational and perhaps even heretical within the institutional system of Christianity as it currently exists.  It was certainly a massive religious-system-threat when Jesus started communicating the ways of His Kingdom in first century Palestine, and chose the least likely candidates (foreigners, enemies, outcasts, sinners) to play the greatest roles in the stories He told, and to be the recipients of His greatest affections in the interactions He had.  Got Him killed, eventually, didn’t it? One thing for sure, it certainly requires us to adopt a different perspective when it comes to ministry.  It cannot be separated into one compartment of our lives to allow us time to focus on the rest.  I heard often growing up that we need to prioritize God above everything else . . . but once I eventually discovered that God had prioritized ME above everything else, I also realized He wanted to be integrated into every aspect of my life – not just one good thing among many things.  He wanted to BE my life.

 

 

This mindset flowing from Identity in Christ allows us to think about “ministry”

primarily as BEING (in Christ) rather than DOING

The Integrated Life

What if we frame ministry as simply our expression of Christ into every aspect of our lives?  If Christ is your “why” (your purpose in life is to share His Love) then the “what” and “where” and “how” (the ways and locations and forums in which you’re able to do this) can be as diverse and creative as the world itself!  What if “ministry” isn’t restricted to the things that usually come to mind when you hear that word?  What if “ministry” is being fully, completely yourself as you abide in Christ?

I grew up a basketball fanatic. In the dead of winter, I’d shovel a section of driveway, put on some gloves and go shoot hoops for hours by myself. During summers, my friends and I would play games into the hundreds, often ending late night under the lights.  Later, when I started coaching varsity ball, I would spend hours diagramming plays, thinking through skills drills, watching college and NBA games, tracking stats and evaluating match-ups.  I loved the game!  One day, I heard a passionate Sunday sermon about giving more of my time to the Lord, and started feeling guilty about the time and energy I was devoting to the silly game of basketball, rather than studying scripture or prayer and fasting. I started cutting back, started increasing my disciplines, felt my passion dropping like a dead duck.

Like it was yesterday, I still remember the conversation I had with God several months later when He laid a doozy on me, “Mo, what if I told you that I love the game of basketball more than you do?”  It floored me.  But it was my door to freedom.  I wasn’t leaving God at home when I played or coached.  He was everywhere Present, and this reality became the means by which I became His partner as I began to give Him every aspect of life, rather than only the “spiritual” parts.  All of life is sacred when we are aware that He is Here and Near.  And the things that light your heart on fire are likely hinting at what God has deposited into you, areas where He’d like to partner with you in sharing with others.

Why wouldn’t believers intimately connected to the Living God pioneer the most advanced technology, dream the most beautiful and breathtaking screenplays, compose the world’s most compelling, heart-stirring music, discover cures for the deadliest diseases?  After all, the Spirit is intimately familiar with the inner workings of the 29^th generation iPad, the powertrains needed for advanced modes of post-automobile transportation, the flow behind next-generation business models that are geared for more than simply bottom-line profits, and the creative spark inspiring the most beautiful artistic expressions and explosions of generosity.  God should be on display, and is, in all of these areas . . . if we would only realize it.  I believe He wants us to Dream Ridiculous Dreams in every sphere of our lives.  His Dreams.

When your personal life vision starts aligning with His vision for His Creation, dangerous and delightful things become possible.

 

Prov 29:18  (AMP) Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint

 

Hab 2 (AMP)   ² And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision and engrave it so plainly upon tablets that everyone who passes may [be able to] read [it easily and quickly] as he hastens by. ³ For the vision is yet for an appointed time and it hastens to the end [fulfillment]; it will not deceive or disappoint. Though it tarry, wait [earnestly] for it, because it will surely come; it will not be behindhand on its appointed day.

 

Congregations across the globe are filled with business owners, parents, nurses, lawyers, theologians, bankers and artists who have never remotely considered that God has given them a unique realm of real and difference-making influence in their Mon-Sat lives.  Church leaders would drastically expand God’s Kingdom scope of operation (which requires a relinquishing of control) if they were able to recognize the outside-of-church “footprint” of those in their care.  In this way of framing ministry, there is mutual respect and honor given to leaders in the local church, as well as to those with influence outside the church who don’t carry any titles at all, but are functioning in their gifts and serving up the love of God in the areas they live, work and play.  The venues are different, the expressions and format and dynamics will almost certainly be unique – but the Beautiful Gospel is the Same.

If church leaders can come alongside and serve their congregations in this way, to help identify each person’s scope of influence and begin equipping them to recognize and exercise that influence, that’s a huge step in the right direction.  95% of church members have never considered the possibility that they have important roles to play in the Story, and that they have a “calling” to that role – that just might be located outside of the local church building and its associated programs.  Be humble in this area.  God looks for those who are humble enough to recognize when God is moving in ways different than our traditional mindsets may have allowed in past seasons, and calls out ones who are willing to follow Him.  That’s what disciples do.  They trust and follow the Rabbi, often into uncharted territory. . .  the One who says to each of us, such confidence in His Voice – “You can be like Me.”   Hear this again on the Authority of Christ:

We are all commissioned by God Himself to be full-time life-time ministers of His Beautiful Gospel 

Imitation – The Highest Form of Flattery

As we study the scriptures and focus on the life of Jesus, we might be awestruck and absolutely amazed when meditating on His words and actions.  Worship is a proper response, perhaps the best response.  However, if we’re not careful, we will focus primarily on the “external” life of Jesus in such a way that we will NOT be compelled to follow.  Why?  We will immediately recognize a monstrous gap between the one we see in the mirror and the One we see in the Gospels.  It’s not that we don’t WANT to follow – we certainly do.  We just naturally elevate Him to such a high and lofty place that we are left without hope to ever imitate Him.  We simply can’t believe we’re anywhere close to being qualified to live and love as He did.  It’s easier to leave Him on a towering pedestal . . . and simply remain an admiring spectator.

 

When He says “follow”, it’s because He believes we can be like Him.

 

The only way possible for us to “imitate” Christ is to model the inside-out (internally-driven) approach that He demonstrated throughout the Gospel accounts, not the outside-in (externally-driven) approach that the culture (even the church culture) recommends and does everything in it’s power to place before you as your only choice.  Essentially, this is what Paul meant when He said that he no longer saw anyone, including Jesus, according to the flesh . . . but according to the Spirit, the same Spirit of Christ that now resides in us (Eph 1).  Because of what Christ accomplished, and because of His Life now resident within us . . . when He says to us “Follow Me”, we are fully equipped to do exactly that.  He is asking us to lay aside our inadequacies, our limitations, our weak natural mindsets, and allow Him to live out His Life and Truth in and through us.

 

II Cor 5:16 (AMP)  Consequently, from now on we estimate and regard no one from a [purely] human point of view [in terms of natural standards of value]. [No] even though we once did estimate Christ from a human viewpoint and as a man, yet now [we have such knowledge of Him that] we know Him no longer [in terms of the flesh].

 

Every time we see something new about Christ, and we meditate and let ourselves be drawn to amazement . . . something in us is further transformed into His image.  The journey into Christ is a journey of awestruck wonder.

 

Look in the mirror and see what He sees. Then, follow Him.

Don’t be intimidated at believing what He believes is true about you.

 

This is the journey He has called us to, through the Black Hole and into the Abyss – into God Himself, our All-Sufficient.  When we see that He identified FIRST with us, we might allow ourselves the possibility that we can respond by identifying with Him.

Cross Immersion – An Experiential Baptism into Christ

Christ identified Himself with me, and with the world, so that we might find our true Identity in Him.

 

Once, a raging

drunken

mass-murdering

rapist

pedophile

drug addict

was brutally tortured and killed. 

 

Except, He hadn’t committed any of those crimes – He just assumed accountability for all of them, every horrific act of wrongdoing throughout human history.  He became the ultimate compilation of every person that had ever attempted to draw life from anything apart from their Creator.  He “became” all of those, and every counterfeit projection that man had placed onto the Father – in order to expose them as Deception and show us the Truth, securing freedom for those He loved.  As he suffered and died, he experienced the pain and agony, the shame and condemnation, the brokenness and separation (“My God, why have you forsaken me?”) as if he had committed those crimes . . . yet, completely pure, innocent, blameless.

Ultimately, He became the very essence of enemy deception – taking on the millions of poisonous strains leading to darkness, confusion, shame, and sin – and destroyed its stronghold on humanity by His own death.  Every negative emotion, every counterfeit success story, every religious attempt to get into right standing with God . . . absorbed into the Christ so that we might live free.

 

In the midst of the Great Deception He screamed back in the face of the enemy . . .

“I AM SUFFICIENT!!!”

He is still screaming this today . . . this moment, and every moment.

 

What kind of love is this?!?

The kind that identified you and me as “the joy set before Him” as He endured the cross,

 despising its shame.

 

Thank you Jesus for Your saving, delivering, healing Work.  You are mighty to save, not just for humanity at a distance or for the nasty sins I see plastered on the evening news . . . though all these are included.  My sin, my confusion and shame, my self-righteousness, weakness, fear and self-doubt drove You to come for me, as the Father chose to reconcile me back into fellowship by allowing You to absorb the worst of mankind’s wrath-fueled violence and transform it into beautiful forgiveness.  In the most stunning act of irony recorded throughout history, the created murdered its Creator, and You responded to Your murderers with the Love You modeled for us to follow.  This is the Narrow Way, the Truth that leads us to Life.

 

II Cor 5 (AMP)  ²¹ For our sake He made Christ [virtually] to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in and through Him we might become [endued with, viewed as being in, and examples of] the righteousness of God [what we ought to be, approved and acceptable and in right relationship with Him, by His goodness]

Jesus is the Truth about God, Spoken in Love.

He is Other. He is Same.

God is Love.  Our first instinct when we hear this phrase is to picture an example of human love that we’ve seen, heard about, or experienced ourselves, then multiply it by some gigantic factor and assign that mental “value” to God.  Consider the entire planet full of people, and allow your mind to extract all of the magnificent examples of love that have ever been generated.  Now extend backwards and forwards through all of time to include every person that’s ever lived and every person that ever will.  Imagine that somehow we’re able to morph all of these examples and pictures into a single act of love, such that it represents the most heart-wrenching soul-engulfing awe-inspiring scene that could ever occur or even be imagined.

One single step that Christ took on His journey to the cross would surpass this imagined ‘morphed’ act of love.  One single step.  As would one movement of his hand in helping his carpenter dad fashion a table or chair.  Or one breath.  A blink of his eye as he woke up from a nap, a mere tenth of a second during his 33 years on our planet.

Christ is the Invisible God made Visible, the heart of Three-in-One’s Raw Love Expressed to our world, infinitely and intricately present to every person who has ever been born and those yet to be.  He is able to be intimately, fully engaged with each individual AS IF they were the only person ever created, touching the deepest part of their soul and knowing every possibility of every moment in their lives, every intersection with every other life – working to orchestrate all things to ensure that they experience Him.  He does this with each one from birth to death throughout the entirety of human history without sacrificing a moment with any of them.  And yet we still cannot grasp that God is beyond the pictures we have in our minds of what this means, beyond our ideas of Who He Is.

God is always greater than the concepts we have about God

At the moment you’re reading this, the edge of the “observable universe” is approximately 92 billion light years across.  What does that even mean?  We see the scientific explanation that it’s the distance that a photon of light, traveling at 186,000 miles per second, travels in 92 billion years.  But after a certain point, the number of zeros gets overwhelming to the point of mind-tilt, and the math becomes muddled, meaningless.  We can write out the number and we understand that it’s gigantic beyond gigantic, but our minds have no true reference point to put it in perspective.  It’s beyond anything our mental scales can measure.

Our projected image of human love in its most incredible form vs. God’s love is like comparing a single atomic sub-particle against the entire 92 billion light-years-across universe.  In fact, His love fills every square millimeter in this universe and spills over into whatever is on the other side of it – which according to the latest math and physics models, may be an infinite series of additional universes that make up what we now call the Multiverse.  We can’t attempt to comprehend this.  Rather, we must gape with mouth and heart-eyes wide open into the mystery of this Truth, and allow it to draw us in reverent Astonishment before the Uncreated.

God’s Love is not a better version of human love, no matter how many thousands or millions or trillions of times you might magnify our highest examples.  It is ridiculous and infinite.  It is OTHER.  Because God is OTHER than we are – true for His Essence, true for His Attributes, true for His Expression into our world.  And He has chosen to focus the entire weight of His love on you and on me.  He may have given up His ‘omnis’ as He poured Himself into human existence, but He carried forward the full weight of His Unchanging Essence – Eternal, UNconditional Love.

This fascinates me . . . the mystery of God’s “Otherness”.   So far above us He’s incomprehensible . . . yet closer than our breath – Intimate Lover, Abba Father, Treasured Friend.  What a beautiful, confusing mystery.  The God of the Entire Universe longs to be in close relationship with the creatures He made . . . His image-bearers.  For this purpose, Jesus forever united Himself with humanity when He came as a man and joined together with us at Calvary.  At-One-Ment.

 

We are in Him, and He in us, an invitation into the sacred intimacy shared within the Trinity.

He is altogether distinct and “other” . . . yet somehow, altogether “same.”

This is nothing but Unbounded, Unrestrained Mystery.  Your Identity, right here right now, is that you are wholly, completely, relentlessly loved by the Creator of the Galaxies and the Creator of your Soul.  He has fashioned you into His image and likeness so that He can enjoy your company, and then deposits His 92-billion-light-years-across Love inside of your heart so that it might be shed abroad.  This Intense Love is also intricate enough to insert its way into every subatomic particle within your heart, alter the chemical make-up of every cell, invade every neuron and synapse within your mind . . . meaning that there is nothing and nowhere outside of the infinite reach of His gentle, healing touch.

 

Fully present. All of Him. In you. Right now.

 

In fact, He has joined Himself with you so utterly and completely that now, whenever He has a thought about Himself . . . that thought includes you.  You have become an essential part of His Identity as He has entangled Himself with you.

 

God cannot think about Himself without thinking about you.

 

Are we able to grasp this?  We must let His Love wash over us and shape us and get on the inside of us and become the source of our life . . . our Reason.  He knows every secret longing in our soul, every broken area, every weakness and insecurity and fear, every haunting memory and recurring nightmare, every stray thought and every hint of shame . . . and asks us to be at peace with ourselves because He has joined Himself to all of who we are.  There is nothing hidden from the Relentless One, and He is faithfully committed with All that He Is to complete the good work He has begun within us.  We are Unconditionally loved for who we are, and we can run TO Him rather than AWAY.  As we do this, all that is NOT true begins to melt away in the Presence of His Burning, UNconditional Love.

This . . . is who We Are in Christ, and Who He Is in us.  We can find our Rest and our Real Life in Him.  Let the awe of this reality suck you at light speed back into the Beginning Black Hole and directly into the center of His Eternal Pre-Creation Love, which – now you’ve been able to see – lies deep within you.

Original Invitation

Why did Jesus choose the original 12?  Because He believed they could become like Him.  That’s what it meant to hear the words “Come, Follow Me” – the Rabbi said that only to those HE believed had what it takes to be like him. And unlike the other rabbis of His day, Christ intentionally sought out those that could place no confidence in their own abilities, looked them squarely in the eyes, and asked them to follow.

It’s the same today.  Jesus wants to be your teacher, your rabbi. He calls you to be His disciple, His student.  This is absolutely independent of who you think you are, what tests you’ve failed, your family history, where you work or how you’ve lived.  You can be like the rabbi.  It has nothing to do with what you’re qualified to do.  It has everything to do with Who you follow, the One who calls you . . .

Hear Christ say it to you now, with confidence in His Beautiful Eyes:  “Come, Follow Me!”

 

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