Category: Followership (Page 2 of 6)

The Continuous Call to Follow Jesus

follow

I was recently studying the passage of scripture about Jesus restoring Peter after his denial of Him (John 21:15-19). I was studying it for another post I was writing and discovered a couple things that warrant their own posts. One was in verse 19. It says, “He said this to signify by what kind of death he would glorify God. After saying this, He told him, ‘Follow Me!’”

Peter’s Backstory

To make the point, jogging our memory with a little back story refresher is necessary. We are first introduced to Peter in Matthew 4:18. That passage tells us that Peter and his brother, Andrew, were fishing when Jesus walks by them. Upon seeing them, Jesus tells them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” At that invitation, Peter dropped his nets and followed Jesus for the next three years.

Those three years would reveal deep truths to Peter. He would learn what faith is and gaze upon the visible image of his invisible God. I can hardly imagine what it must have been like. His time with his savior would provide the conviction for Peter to say, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away” (Matthew 26:33). But Peter would fall away and fall away hard.

Peter’s Call… Again

While the other disciples fled and hid, Peter outright denied multiple assertions that he was with Jesus. After Jesus’ crucifixion, we can assume Peter did not see a way back to Jesus, because he returned to the life Jesus had called him out of. And then we see Jesus, likely on the same shore, with Peter performing the same task. After reinstating Peter, Jesus tells him, for the second time, “Follow Me!”

Jesus’ Call to Us

And, this is where Peter ends up; with Jesus offering the same call to him as He did three years prior. The good news is, He offers the same to us. No matter what you have done or how far you think you have fallen, He still says, “Follow me.” His is a call we get to answer every day. And as sure as darkness will come, His merciful call to follow Him, comes more.

photo: Flickr/Simon Matzinger

Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin… Except Ours

LoveIn the name of love, we are willing to do things that we never dreamed. For instance, I love my wife so much I willingly endure temperatures in our home that are on par with the outer boundaries of hell, because she is cold…even during summer. What can I say? I really love my wife.

Built for Love

At the end of the day, we are built for love. We are designed to give and receive love. Being that God is love and He desires to have us as His beloved; it follows that we are created to receive His love and extend it to others. Thankfully, many Christians understand this calling – extending and being His love. I’m hearing more and more people affirm that we are called to love others, and this is a good thing. What concerns me is what else can be said.

Love filled Hate

A common comment from people of the church is: “I hate the sin, but I love the sinner.” My response to this is always, “No you don’t.” Please understand, I recognize the good intention in this statement, because I use to say this very thing. What I understand now is that we error in believing that hate and love can coexist. “Hate the sin, but love the sinner” is found…nowhere in the Bible. This teaching isn’t in the Bible. While the bible definitely makes the case that God hates sin, it actually says evil (Ps 97:10), it more often points to hating our own sin, rather than sin in general, because it is our sin that keeps us from Him (Isa 59:2). And when we look at Jesus’ ministry, it was not part of His teachings. What Jesus did say was “Love God and love others.”

Your Plank

Again, He did mention “the speck” (or sin – Mt 7:3-5) in your brother’s eye. However, it was not for the purpose the church typically references. When we use that scripture to call out someone else’s sin, we disregard that Jesus first said deal with the plank in our own eye. In other words, that huge board! I mean, the guy was a carpenter, so I’m sure He was pretty solid on what a plank of wood looked like. His point was, deal with the huge sin in your own life, before considering the sin in your brother’s.

Their Speck

One of the key words in this passage of scripture is brother. After dealing with your own sin, Jesus was talking about dealing with the sin of other believers, not people outside of His followers. Sadly, we use this scripture to justify naming the sin of people who do not even believe they should be following Jesus. Then we wonder why they won’t come to our church. I’ve never seen anyone come to Jesus after a Christian said, “Jesus hates your sin, but He loves you, so follow Him.”

Hate Crushing Love

Here is the truth. You cannot truly love someone when you are focused on what you hate about them, and what they’re doing wrong. If we, as The Church, truly desire to love others as we love ourselves (Mk 12:31), we need to recognize that with God, hate never precedes love. It just cannot. Love cannot have anything to do with hate – except to crush it. Love stands alone and conquers hate. Remember you are built for love. This is the way of Jesus.

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Photo Credit: A Mormon Enigma

The Insider’s Guide to That Plank in Your Eye

Plank

Lately, a lot of people are up in arms over what can and can’t be called sin.   Both Christians and non-Christians have drawn clear lines in the sand and drawn their proverbial swords from the sheaths, ready to do battle over our freedom to call specific actions sinful… or not.

So we log-on, click, share, and deliver our blow to the opposing side with a cleverly crafted meme. Our hope is that we can dig the speck out of their eye, before they notice the plank in ours. And, we know our viral logic can’t be refuted, sans a cleverer meme from the other side. Unfortunately, everyone is so media shocked, that no one is hearing what the other side is screaming.

The World’s Sin

Christians are in a unique position. We have the opportunity to communicate the simplest truths of the Gospel on a global scale. If not handled well, we open the door to some potentially devastating results; namely the possibility of driving people from Jesus, rather than to Him.

Consider John 16. Jesus is found telling the disciples about the Holy Spirit and what the Holy Spirit’s job will be. Jesus explains:

8 And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. 9 The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in me. 10 Righteousness is available because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more.”

In verse 9 it appears that Jesus takes the time to intentionally point out and define, for the disciples (and us), what the world’s sin is. He could have said ANYTHING at that moment, but He chose to define it as unbelief in Him. Inarguably, throughout His ministry, He did address specific sins that did not fit with following him. However, I believe His defining of sin in this verse was intentionally focused on the sin that we, as His followers, should be focused on when addressing other’s sin.

The sins that he outright condemns (hate, lust, coveting, etc.) are all directed at His followers for the sake of their own righteousness; not for His followers to point out in others as sin. This becomes evident right after He teaches about anger, adultery and revenge. He says not to concern ourselves with the speck in someone else’s eye (their sin) when there is a plank in ours (our glaring sin) [Matthew 7:3-5.]

Christians and the World’s Sin

Fortunately, in defining the world’s sin, Jesus made that fit perfectly into the Great Commission He gave us before departing the earth. In Acts 1:8, just prior to His ascension, Jesus commissions the Apostles (and by proxy all His followers) to “be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” This unbelief in Jesus is the sin we’re called to address and being His witness is how we’re expected to address it.

As we love and live life with others, they begin to wonder and ask where we find our hope (because they get to see the realness and rawness of our life and how Jesus moves within it and within us.) When that happens, we’re able to declare who He is, His goodness, and provide an explanation for the hope we have (1 Peter 3:15).

In response to the world’s unbelief, we are called to be Jesus’ witnesses (or testify, proclaim, declare) to who He is… the Son of the Living God. We do that by loving God and by loving those He has put in our life. Obeying these commands is evidence of our love for Jesus.

Now is the time to stop declaring what we’re against and start declaring Who we are for. This does not mean that we are not accountable for what Jesus taught, because we are. We are. Christians are accountable, not unbelievers.

The Best Way

When we love God, we’re drawn to a life of righteousness in Christ. Because we love God and Jesus, we also obey His command to love others. When we love others, they get to experience Jesus. Through our declaration of who Jesus is (through word and action), the Holy Spirit leads that person into all truth and convicts them of the sin of unbelief. They either answer or reject that conviction. If they accept it and seek Jesus; the Holy Spirit draws them to righteousness, in Jesus, and begins to deal with the sins that have kept them from that righteousness and holiness. Our part then becomes to disciple the new believer within a relationship (and community) of love and grace.

Make your plank the priority. Deal with the sins within you. Seek out other believers that will hold you accountable. But as for the world adhering to the standard of righteousness He calls US to, they don’t even believe in Him, why would they follow what He says?

Maybe it’s time that we actually do what Jesus said and love God, love others, and let the Holy Spirit lead us to Him, turning us to righteousness.

Photo credit/used from www.hendersonbaptist.org
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