What if we were like Him?

In preparing to talk about "God-developed character" -- the fruit of the Spirit and some other qualities, I keep coming back to humility. Andrew Murray called it "The beauty of holiness" -- meaning that humility is the real mark of the man or woman who "gets it" spiritually. Even though I use Mark 10:45 often to encourage a serving spirit, I've forgotten that its context is the prediction of Jesus' brutal death, the whiny disciples all wanting to be "somebody" and Jesus reminder of His role among them even as His prophecy of suffering and death still hung in the air:
Mark 10 (NLT)
Jesus Again Predicts His Death
32 They were now on the way up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. The disciples were filled with awe, and the people following behind were overwhelmed with fear. Taking the twelve disciples aside, Jesus once more began to describe everything that was about to happen to him. 33 “Listen,” he said, “we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die and hand him over to the Romans. 34 They will mock him, spit on him, flog him with a whip, and kill him, but after three days he will rise again.”

Jesus Teaches about Serving Others
35 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came over and spoke to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do us a favor.” 36 “What is your request?” he asked. 37 They replied, “When you sit on your glorious throne, we want to sit in places of honor next to you, one on your right and the other on your left.” 38 But Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism of suffering I must be baptized with?” 39 “Oh yes,” they replied, “we are able!”

Then Jesus told them, “You will indeed drink from my bitter cup and be baptized with my baptism of suffering. 40 But I have no right to say who will sit on my right or my left. God has prepared those places for the ones he has chosen.” 41 When the ten other disciples heard what James and John had asked, they were indignant. 42 So Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. 43 But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. 45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Heart Check

How can I know how my heart's doing? Jeremiah said it's "deceitfully wicked...desperately sick, who can know it?" The Bible does provide some barometers that give me some indications. For instance:

• What's been the primary focus of my attention? One term the Bible uses is "affections" -- what are the attractions or the loves that take hold of my heart? What do I keep wanting or wishing to have? The objects of my affection take the front seat in my heart. Are those good and right things or selfish and me-centered stuff?
• How have I been responding to circumstances and people (especially negative ones)? Do my reactions demonstrate a heart of faith -- knowing that God is in charge of what enters my life -- or am I more anxious and angry and centered on "how does this thing or person affect ME?"Where's the money been going? Jesus informed us that our hearts and our money occupy the same real estate. In other words, take a reading on my finances and you get a simultaneous reading on my heart. Are my resources mostly going toward needs, pleasures, comfortss and stuff I want, or am I demonstrating increasing generosity and a greater heart for ministry and people?
• Am I loving God and loving people more and more? Jesus' encounter with the young wealthy man reinforced that Truth: loving God with my whole heart and loving peple around me in ways  just like I love myself are the test of where my heart is. Is God getting more of my heart and mine and attention, or less? Are my relationships more marked by compassion and gentleness than by human responses?
• Am I more know by the fruit of the Spirit, or by the outflow of the fleshly nature? When God's Spirit gets possession of a heart, people nearby will notice! Do they?
• Am I responding well and regularly to God and His Word? Does it speak to me...do I believe it and begin to take steps to obey it? Do I read and hear Scripture and respond well, no only agreeing but expressing a willingness to change?
• Am I an active servant? Jesus said that He Himself did not come to be served, but to serve...do I observe needs and move to meet them, or am I just another who's first in line at the pot lucks and gone long before the clean-up time begins? Do I notice needs in the fellowship and the community...and my own family...ones that touh me in such a way that I am moved to serve?

Walking on

In Matthew 28 Jesus said, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

"Don't look back. You are never completely alone." Daniel Silva, Moscow Rules.

By its very nature, to move ahead and make good spiritual progress means leaving behind comfortable and self-absorbed habits of the flesh...and also, more often than not, it will mean leaving behind former companions, who simply will not take the road less traveled. The temptation to slow or stop, to stay with the former ways and former friends, is always insidious and great.

What people know

From Ed Stetzer's blog...

Even the unchurched know 2 things: Jesus loved the poor & the sick,

so they're confused when they don't see us doing either.

What's in a name?

I've tried in vain a thousand ways, My fears to quell, my hopes to raise;
And all I need, the Bible says is Jesus.

My soul is night, my heart is steel, I cannot see, I cannot feel;
For light, for life I must appeal io Jesus.

He dies, He lives, He reigns, He pleads, There's love in all His words and deeds;
All, all a guilty sinner needs is Jesus.

Though some will mock, and some will blame, In spite of fear, in spite of shame,
I'll go to Him, because His name is Jesus.
- Author Unknown

...you are to give him the name Jesus, because He will save His people
from their sins. (Matthew 1:21)

Lewis on purpose

The church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became a Man for no other purpose. - C.S. Lewis

Vacation books

I've been working through Organic Church for a few weeks, but on vacation I really got into it -- and it got more into me. Neil Cole successfully got my attention with other writing. Organic Church resonated profoundly as it analyzes the American Church setting.

Following a sober discussion of Jesus' parable of the soils, he writes in chapter 5, "I am convinced we have made a serious mistake by accommodating bad soil in our churches...We try to woo people to come and keep coming. What we end up with is an audience of consumers shopping for the best 'services'."

Chapter 7 begins by stating the result of that accommodation. "American Christianity is dying...We are deathly ill and don't even know it..."

Then if that's not enough, he unloads with stuff that most pastors never utter in public (because we're engaged with a business model of "church"). It's time we said what Cole says, and what we've whispered to each other. He writes under a heading of "Church Shopping" --

"Imagine...people come to us because they are impressed by our music, children's programs, clean toilets, and parking spaces. What if suddenly being a Christian is cool and the newest fad is to attend church. What have we done? Are we better off? I don't think so. Now we have churches full of consumers looking for the one that offers the best "service" for them or their family. Whatever the next great show is, that is where the multitudes will flock. Does it sound familiar at all? What we draw them with is what we draw them to. If they come expecting to be entertained, we had better entertain them if we want to keep them coming back every week..."

I'm going to start praying for God to move some desperate seekers and new believers into our part of the Kingdom -- the sort of folks willing to dump the carnal urge to "have it their way" and just be serious about a Lord Who'd say things like, "unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it; and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal." (John 12:24)

Can you imagine what Christ might do with that band of followers like that?

Cole ends chapter 7 like this: "Christianity is always just one generation away from extinction. If we fail to reproduce ourselves and pass the torch of life into the hands of the next generation, Christianity will be over in just one generation. Yet because of the power of multiplication, we are also one generation away from worldwide fulfillment of the Great Commission. The choice is ours."