Tag: Discipleship (Page 1 of 2)

Letter II: Blessed Are the Broken – Mercy in a World That Discards

May 18, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Letters to the American Church

To the beloved of Christ in the land of abundance and affliction, grace, mercy, and clarity to you in the name of Jesus, who was moved with compassion and wept over what the world deemed unworthy of tears.

I write to you with the weight of a question:
Have we forgotten how to feel?

Not how to feel offended.
Not how to feel angry.
But how to feel compassion.

We live in a society that discards the weak, mocks the vulnerable, and punishes the poor. And too often, the church has followed suit, not with cruelty in its hands, but with apathy in its heart.

Let us remember what moved Jesus.

He did not rush past the bleeding woman.
He did not avoid the cries of the blind.
He did not silence the leper or cross the road to preserve purity.
He stopped. He listened. He touched. He healed.

Mercy was not His strategy. It was His nature.

And it must become ours.

To be merciful is to see the suffering that others ignore.
It is to sit with pain that cannot be fixed.
It is to believe that no human life is disposable.
It is to say, “Your distress is not a disruption to my faith; it is where my faith begins.”

This is not softness. It is strength.
It is not sentimentality. It is sanctification.

Jesus did not bless the powerful, the efficient, or the polished.
He said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
Mercy is not a loophole in God’s justice; it is the heart of it.

So I ask again, Church:

  • When did we learn to explain away the tears of the traumatized?
  • When did we become more fluent in judgment than in gentleness?
  • When did we decide that suffering people were a political problem instead of sacred neighbors?

The Spirit of Christ is not found in cold calculation but in compassionate proximity.

We cannot call ourselves followers of Jesus if we do not bend toward the broken.
We cannot be His body if we do not carry His heart.

And His heart still beats for the hungry child, the grieving mother, the anxious mind, the wounded soul.

Mercy is not weakness; it is our witness.

Beloved, this is not a guilt trip. It is a gospel invitation. You are loved by the One who bore your wounds in His body. And He calls you not to save the world, but not to look away. To love those the world forgets. To see dignity where others see inconvenience. To bless what others curse.

Mercy will always look foolish to those addicted to power.
But it will look like Christ to those longing for a Savior.

So may we feel again.
May we move toward pain, not away from it.
May we become, once more, a people of mercy.

For that is the way of Jesus.

Grace and peace to you from the Compassionate Christ,
Bruce

Letter I: To Follow Jesus is to Carry the Cross of Love

May 11, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Letters to the American Church

To the beloved of Christ scattered across America, grace, peace, and courage to you in the name of Jesus, who loved us and gave Himself for us.

I write to you with the burden of both grief and hope. Grief, because so many who wear Christ’s name have forgotten what it means to follow Him. Hope, because His call still rings out, unwavering: “Follow me.” Not into power, not into safety, not into superiority—but into love. A love that costs. A love that heals. A love that carries a cross.

Let us remember what Jesus asked of us.

He did not say, “Take up your comfort.”
He did not say, “Defend your dominance.”
He did not say, “Prove your righteousness.”

He said, “Take up your cross.”

The cross was not a symbol of cultural relevance or religious pride. It was Rome’s cruel tool of execution, repurposed by Christ as the ultimate sign of self-giving love. And He did not wield it against others. He carried it for others.

To be Christian is not to wield the sword of judgment but to bear the wounds of mercy. It is to embody the ethic of the kingdom He proclaimed in His Sermon on the Mount: a way of meekness, mercy, peacemaking, and purity of heart. That sermon, not Caesar’s sword or the Constitution’s amendments, is our moral charter.

Jesus’ new commandment, “Love one another as I have loved you,” is not an ornament for our theology; it is the cornerstone. This kind of love is not sentimental. It is sacrificial. It is not ideological. It is incarnational. And it is not optional.

Christ-followers, the time has come for us to examine our hearts and ask:

  • Have we traded the gospel of Jesus for a gospel of power?
  • Have we made being “right” more important than being loving?
  • Have we built sanctuaries of self-protection instead of communities of self-giving?

The cruciform life—the cross-shaped life—is the only one Jesus ever invited us into. It is the way of downward mobility, of humility and service, of justice that flows not from domination but from compassion. It looks like washing feet. It looks like forgiving enemies. It looks like feeding the hungry and protecting the vulnerable.

If your faith costs you nothing, it may not be Christ you’re following.

This is not a call to guilt but to grace. You are loved… deeply, relentlessly. Even now, the Spirit is ready to breathe new life into weary disciples, disillusioned believers, and compromised churches. But revival will not come through a flag or a ballot box. It will come when we return, not to empire but to Christ.

Beloved, the world will not know us by our influence, but by our love. That is the mark of discipleship. That is the witness the world longs to see.

So take up your cross, not in bitterness, but in joy. Not to defeat your neighbor, but to serve them. Not to prove a point, but to love without condition.

For that is the way of Jesus.

Grace and peace to you from the Crucified and Risen One,

In the fellowship of Christ’s love,

Bruce

Stop Obsessing Over your Call from God

July 17, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Call

Like many Christians, I used to worry a lot about my “calling”. Most of the worry has to do with the pressure leaders place on the importance of finding and fulfilling that “one thing” we are supposed to do for God. These leaders never intend that to be the case. Most, if not all, simply want us to realize and accept the invitation that God extends to us to join Him in His work. Unfortunately, it can often come off in a way that it is the most important thing we need to figure out. Almost as if not figuring it out makes us ineffective in God’s kingdom.

So we wrestle with it and pray about it. Then we seek counsel on it and listen real hard to hear God call us. And we get frustrated because we do not hear it as clearly as Moses did with the burning bush thing. But the thing is, I think it is a lot easier than all that.

The Clarity of Our Call

In fact, I think He has pretty clearly outlined our calling in the bible. For the last few years I’ve had this conversation with people: lots of young adults, my kids, newly married couples, my middle-aged friends. After awhile I started to become more frustrated with how none of us realize how simple God has made it. So I decided to write a book about it. Well, the book is actually about how Jesus only gave us three specific commands and how one of them, I think, is the key to obeying the others. But, the undertone of the book deals with our calling as followers of Jesus. I’m hoping to have the book done by the end of August and ready for release by early spring 2018, but until then, I wanted to share this secret. Ready?

As Christians, we all have one calling. Yep, you read that correctly. We are all called to one singular thing and it is the same for all of us. Actually, to be fair, our calling is truly made up of a few different elements. Specifically it is made up of three commands and one commission. That is our calling, obedience to three commands and one commissioning. So what are they?

Three Commands and a Commission 

I know this seems too easy to be true, but it really is not. I am confident that God was clear about two things: 1) how to get to Him (spoiler, Jesus) and 2) what we are supposed to do after we confess Jesus, so others can get to Him. Number two is our calling. It is THE thing that God is calling us all into. We, as Christians, all share in the exact same call of Christ. Here they are:

He commands us to:

  • Love God – Matthew 22:37
  • Love Our Neighbor – Matthew 22:39
  • Love Other Christians – John 13:3

He commissions us to:

  • Be my Witness and Make Disciples – Matthew 28:19 & Acts 1:8

Jesus was pretty clear at the end of Matthew 22, after he acknowledged the two most important commands. In verse 40 He said, “All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.” He was saying that our obedience to everything in the Old Testament depends on our understanding of and obedience to these two commands. Then He gave His followers the new command to love each other. I think there is a lot in that, but you will need to get the book to read my thoughts on that. In the big picture those commands are not always easy to follow, but I think they are pretty simple to understand.

After identifying the commands that we ought to be obeying, He commissioned us to be His witnesses to an unbelieving world and teach others to obey those commands. That’s our calling. Simple, right? I know some of you are saying, “But, I know my calling is to youth ministry.” So let’s talk about that.

The context & setting in which we do “ministry” is inconsequential if we do not accept loving & going as our call.
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Your Call to Youth Ministry

Really it can be any call, youth, any other vocational pastorate, para-church ministry, or even Taco Bell. I am not suggesting that God is not calling you to any of those things; there is a high likelihood you are, again I am not arguing that. But, the context & setting in which we do “ministry” is inconsequential if we do not accept loving & going as our call. More and more, I am certain that when you understand and accept that this is what God is calling us to, He will direct that call toward a specific group or cause. Chances are you probably already care about the thing you feel “called” to; you just need to align it with what God has already commanded and commissioned us to do.

My hope is that this frees someone who feels like they are not doing something “impactful” for the Kingdom. Here is the truth, the most important thing you can do for God, and other people, is whatever you are doing for them right now, as long as it is done with a lovingness that introduces people to Jesus. If you are not doing anything right now, just pick something. What you do and where you do it is often of little concern. So, just do something that puts the love of Jesus on display for others to see and feel. That is your call.

photo: Flickr/Sean MacEntee
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