False prophets will tickle your ear …
While true prophets speak what you don’t want to hear.
Category: Simple Discipleship
The great lie of our times is that we should follow our heart.
All it has produced, among God’s people, are carnal Christians.
God never said that what we feel is the standard for what is true, real and right.
In fact, God says that the heart is deceitful, foolish and exceedingly wicked …
But His Word endures forever.
Which is why God seeks to redeem our heart …
But never puts it on par with Scripture as our standard for life, doctrine and maturity.
The opposite of Godly faith is not lack of faith …
Because everyone has faith in something.
The question is, in what or whom?
What about those who peddle an appealing Christ of their own perception through enticing books, blogs, seminars and posts …
While dismissing His plenary authority of Scripture as His written Word?
It’s not that they’re always wrong.
After all, even broken clocks are right twice a day …
But only fools would try to use ’em to tell time.
The worst deceptions …
Start with affirmation.
Slowly but surely, God is shifting the paradigm of church and leadership.
It is becoming genuinely organic, simple and participatory, with healthy fellowships beginning to emerge.
All I can say is forget the buzz words and existential agendas of past advocates like Viola and Dale – along with their fellow “itinerant” buddies like Zens, Rodriguez, Giles and Rohde.
They tried to peddle their own cookie-cutter, trans-Biblical perceptions of Christ and the Church on God’s people …
Through books and blogs that they never sustainably made work in their own lives, home towns or anywhere else.
As a result, they have left behind a legacy of ruined lives and failed churches.
Instead, build on the sure foundation already apostolically laid through Scripture as God’s authoritative written Word, in the unique context of diverse communities …
Where He still sends us today to make disciples and redeem nations.
That, my friends, is real “organic” church and leadership.
In the Old Testament, God let a jackass speak …
Not to affirm the jackass, but to affirm His Word.
Some today would do well to remember that distinction.
The greatest struggle for many is letting go of our hurts.
Often, we let our hurts define us by holding onto the familiarity of our pain …
Rather than chancing the unfamiliarity of a truly new life in Christ.
Even among Christians, few risk the ongoing redemption of confession, forgiveness and repentance to become whole and complete in Him.
Really, it’s not that difficult …
But it does take trust.
In Hebrews 13:17, some English Bibles tell us to “obey” those who “rule over” us in the church. These are very unfortunate translations.
In the original Greek, the verb translated “obey” is in the middle voice and means to “be persuaded.” Yet it is often wrongly translated in the active voice as “obey,” which has an entirely different meaning.
The verb phrase “rule over” also is a misleading translation.
In the original Greek, it is not referring to anyone with hierarchical authority “over” others.
Rather, it is simply talking about those who have earned your esteem by having given thought to and walked farther along the same path.
If they can’t persuade or earn your respect by having actually thought through and lived what they’re saying, then we are under no obligation to accord them any influence in our lives.
Bottom line:
There is NO command in the New Testament to blindly obey or follow anyone – and no mandate for authoritarianism, “covering” or control over others – in the church.
Church leadership in the New Testament is straightforward:
Be persuaded by those who thoughtfully walk the walk and are further along in their faith and life experience, yielding to their example as we submit one to another.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Longstanding hurts, disappointments and emotional wounds can become so ingrained into our sense of identity …
That they begin to define us.
When that happens, we often aren’t willing to transparently expose and turn them over to Jesus …
But tightly hold onto them like a child clinging to a security blanket.
Instead of finding liberation and wholeness through new life in Christ …
We then become our past.
Healthy civilizations and societies are a Christian virtue …
Promoted by those who heed Christ’s Lordship in all spheres of life and human endeavor.
Using civil government to compel personal faith and piety, however, is a Christian vice …
Promoted by those who don’t understand Christ’s different jurisdictional limitations for particular spheres of life and human endeavor.
True disciples surrender their biases and sensibilities to God and His written Word.
Both libertine existentialists and self-righteous legalists, however, surrender God and His written Word to their biases and sensibilities …
Thereby elevating themselves above God Himself and His plenary authority of Scripture.
It will be a terrible scene when those who preached cheap grace …
Finally stand before God’s holiness.
But a time of rejoicing for those who proclaimed His true grace …
Thereby leading many to repentance, obedience and redemption before that fateful day.
When you finally start feeling gratitude for your scars …
Is about when wisdom begins.
Narcissistic leaders know how to make you feel needed and affirmed.
It’s how they control and use others to feed their own need for attention and validation.
But their charm comes at great peril, because ultimately they will consume you to advance their own self-serving agendas.
Don’t be co-dependent, no matter how gifted they seem.
God created you – and His Church – for better.
Those who want a Jesus who wants what they want …
Inevitably fall away.
Those who surrender their wants to what He wants …
Endure.
It’s liberating to learn that God did not create us to be like someone else …
But instead gives us different personalities and motivations that match our differing spiritual gifts.
We experience His pleasure as we learn to uniquely use and enjoy those gifts as He intended …
In our lives, families, fellowships and communities.
Initial failure …
Is often the key to success.
Unless Jesus is your King …
He’s not your Savior.
Law reveals,
Grace enables,
Faith secures.
There are no hierarchical titles in the original language of the New Testament regarding God’s people and the church.
Instead, there are only straightforward descriptive words for different functions using the everyday language of ordinary folk …
And bad English translations which imply otherwise today.
When our view of God reflects our own sensibilities …
He’s not really God, but an idol of our own creation.
Those needing a title to be a leader and influential …
Are neither.
Unless the mandate to be Christ’s ekklesia (His participatory assembly that represents and advances His Kingship within the local community where we live) is fully working …
None of His other mandates (like the Great Commission and discipleship) will also fully work.
Someone else’s problem may not always require our intervention …
But when it does, we should earn the right to do so.
