Missional Discipleship

At Heartland Worship Center, where I serve as one of the pastors, we believe that biblical discipleship = knowledge + mission.  Knowledge without mission leaves us “puffed up” and filled with useless pride and information.  Mission without knowledge leaves us superficial and reduces us to a charitable organization that misses eternal significance by merely alleviating some temporary pain (which is a good thing in itself but it misses the eternal purpose of the church).  Therefore, those who are being discipled into the imitation of Jesus and into living by the logos of His cross will have both.  Discipleship = Knowledge + Mission.

The following quote is so excellent that I had to send it to you.  It comes from the book “The Faith of Leap” by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch (my favorite book of theirs is without a doubt “Re-Jesus”).  Not only does this blurb address the crisis of a lack of missional urgency, but it also explains why a crisis of knowledge exists even in the midst of so much biblical teaching.  Here it is:

“People resist mission because they are under-disciplined, but they are also under-disciplined because of the absence of any missional challenge.  We seriously question whether Christians today need more teaching and training before being sent into mission.  The memberships of most of our churches are full to bursting with Bible teaching.  The reason it seems they haven’t retained much of it is because they have never had to utilize it in a misisonal context.  We say, take people into mission, confront them with the risk of godly service, and we guarantee they will be desperate for a biblical perspective on life.” (pg.
139)

Leadership Quotes

I am asking for your best or favorite quote concerning leadership.  Reply through the “comments” link and send a leadership principle, truth, characteristic, or any other idea centering on what a leader is, does, seeks, etc. 

I don’t usually make comments available only because of time constraints that do not allow me to monitor or dialogue with them.  I’m not a professional blogger.  It’s just a hobby.  However, this time I’m seeking an exchange of ideas. 

Here are the rules:

(1)  It probably should go without saying on a blog entitled Crossculture but I’m not going to take any chances and say from the beginning that any profanity will be deleted.

(2)  No leadership comments that take shots at specific leaders (e.g. “my pastor really needs to learn . . .”) 

(3)  You are allowed and encouraged to quote other people. 

(4)  No more than three sentences. 

(5)  Seek to inspire the readers of this blog.

Any comment that doesn’t follow these rules will not be posted.  I will still love you but I won’t post your comments  

So give me your best, Crossculture readers.  Motivate me.  Inform me.  Inspire me.  Challenge me.  I want to know about leadership.

Circumspect Christ

Just to be clear, I said “circumspect” not “circumcised.”  That would be a whole different blog.

Transitions become one of those moments in life that beg us to take a strong look at where we’ve been, where we are, where we want to go, and how we want to get there.  The turning of calendars from 2011 to 2012 affords us such an opportunity.  In fact, everybody is doing it.  Your internet homepage has multiple lists of top ten this or that from 2011, as well as prognostication of the coming year.  It’s resolution time.  Yeah, right.  Just what we need.  We all need a few more legalistic promises to ourselves that we won’t keep and will ultimately leave us full of shame when we fail.  Ugh!  Count me out.  Instead, I chose circumspection.

The word “circumspect” refers to seeing (“spect” as in spectacle) life in full circle (“circum” as in circumference).  Retrospect would be a look at the past, and prospect would be a look at the future.  Introspection or inspection is a look within.  Circumspect means that we take a long look at it all.  Paul tells us to “walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise” (Eph. 5:15).

Walking or living circumspect is harder to do than you might think.  Living with an awareness of where you’ve been, how you got to the point you are at, and where you envision life taking you demands great self-awareness, and for Christians, great communion with God – including a strong familiarity with Christ.  I am suggesting to you that most people don’t live with intentionality.

I’m afraid that often life lives us rather than us living our lives.  For some, life is happening to them like a movie, and they are along for the ride to see what happens.  Many people in our world never ask deeper questions about existence, purpose, and value in life and death.  Everyone has opportunities to do so, especially at transitions:  New Year, birth, death, marriage, a move.  Unfortunately, too many take a look at the journey that an intentional life demands and simply call it myth, choosing instead to breathe in the manufactured realities they are given.  The result is a superficial life.  I am afraid that I have met some folks who didn’t even seem to have the ability to think in terms of “cause and effect.”  They could never link outcomes to the cause of those outcomes, and so they keep doing basically the same things and, of course, getting the same results.

That’s not who you are, of course.  You’re reading a blog.  A really good, thoughtful, and provocative blog that keeps you on the edge of your seat as you look deeply into the hidden compartments of your heart.  OK, I’m overselling this blog in a major way.  Complete hyperbole to bolster my self-esteem; it’s a sad and ugly attempt at validation.  My point is that people who care enough to stop during the day and read a blog, to take some time to stop running in life so that they can think about where they are running, tend to be people who think deeply about who they are.

But Paul reminds us that it is a constant battle for circumspection.  He tells us to walk with awareness and intentionality.  This refers to a life that evaluates itself regularly, not just at New Years.

We have several obstacles in doing this:

1. We live in a loud culture that demands our attention and rarely gives us a moment to reflect about who we are and want to be.
2. We naturally avoid self-awareness because of the vulnerability it brings to see ourselves as we really are.  It’s painful.
3. We would rather live in ignorance, avoiding life’s demanding tasks and accepting the fake reality by thinking we are who we would like to be instead of who we really are.
4. We are doers who do not value being.  We wrongly tend to think that what we will do will make us into something, when in reality what we are will drive what we do.
5. The questions we must ask to live circumspectly are difficult ones and demand work that we tend not to want to do.  They are questions about existence, purpose, worth, and meaning.

On my way to work today, I listened to one of the older Switchfoot songs that asks the question: “This is your life; are you who you want to be?”  So, you do have a chance.  God has given you the opportunity to make some choices and be on a path.  If you are a believer, then He has done even more than that:  He has empowered you with the Holy Spirit to be able to choose to imitate Jesus.

This moment could be pivotal.  A “pivot” is a powerful point that is able to transfer weight from one point to another.  Even though it is small, it is still powerful.  Each moment is powerful like that, but only if we are circumspect.

My prayer through this Crossculture blog is that you might stop for a moment, take circumspect inventory, and see the beauty and wisdom of Jesus and His cross to the degree that you would become intentional about your discipleship.  I hope that something written in the past year on this blog made you see Him with greater clarity or with multifaceted glory, and that when you become intentional, you will be intentionally His.

Death of an Atheist (part 2)

I wasn’t expecting to write a Part 2.  When Christopher Hitchens died, I felt compelled to write about it, because for some strange reason I was intrigued by him.  Most of the time, atheists don’t intrigue me.  I’m not an apologetics aficionado by any means, and debates don’t float my boat.  I’m a pastor more than anything else, and I always think like pastor:  how do I edify and empower my faith family to maximum impact in the world.  So really, it was a little out of character for me to have so much to say about Hitchens.  When I published that blog, I thought I was done with that.

 . . . then Kim Jong Il died, and now I’m back in the game.  I keep trying to get out, but they keep pulling me back in (from the movie “Godfather”). North Korea and Kim Jong Il have fascinated me for the past year.  So, I can’t pass up the opportunity to talk about it.

 Kim Jong Il was the dictator and dynastic leader of North Korea.  He is a communist, and therefore, an atheist.  Well . . . he is “sort of” an atheist.  He has created his own religion called Juche.  Really, Juche is the philosophy of North Korea.  It means “self-reliance.”  Kim Jong Il, like his father, effectively quarantined his entire country from the rest of the world.  That’s not an easy thing to do. China was able to do it for several decades, but the economic needs eventually gave way to the need for connections to other countries.  And boy did it work for China, who now has a powerful economy.  That’s a testimonial that will be difficult for other Asian countries to ignore. Myanmar seems to finally be making headway in opening its country to outsiders as well.

Making it even more difficult is the fact that North Korea shares its peninsula with South Korea. South Korea is a close ally to the U.S. and is quite westernized.  Its economy is flourishing, and Christianity has exploded there — with the largest churches in the world being found there, besides the underground “house” churches of China.  Ironically, North Korea borders China to the North.  I pray often for North Korea, that Christianity would one day flourish there like it has with its neighbors.

Maybe Christianity is flourishing there.  We don’t know.  The effectiveness of Juche leaves us with very little knowledge of North Korea.  In fact, very little is known about its new leader, Kim Jong Un, one of the younger sons of Kim Jong Il.  However, “Voice of the Martyrs” (www.voiceofthemartyrs.com) reports some movement of Christianity within the prisons of North Korea.  It’s been reported that Christianity was spreading amongst the prisons and Christians isolated in their own prisons in attempts to keep the movement at bay.

 North Korea has paid a heavy price in the name of “self-reliance.”  It has necessitated great investments into the military, while poverty is rampant.  Some estimate that North Korea has the 5th largest military in the world.  Its secret advancement in nuclear weapons is no secret to anyone anymore.  Isolation demands firepower.  Yet, the people have suffered.  Kim Jong Il has kept them under his fear-infused command reminding them of Japanese oppression of the past and warning that outsiders cannot be trusted, especially the ones from South Korea and their ally, the U.S.  Kim Jong Il warned that western and outside influences would damage the people’s purity even though he had scores of sports cars, imported liquor and cigars, and mistresses from other countries.

My eyes were opened to the state of North Korea through a documentary entitled, Inside North Korea by National Geographic’s journalist, Lisa Ling, who entered the country undercover.  If you haven’t seen it, do so as quickly as possible.  You will see that this atheist, “Dear Leader” as he is referred to, has advanced Juche as a religion with he as its god.  Every building in North Korea has Kim Jong Il’s picture in it.  There is a hymnbook full of songs that worship and praise Kim Jong Il.  In one scene, a humanitarian effort brought an ophthalmologist to the country to perform simple cataract surgeries that allowed those who were blind from cataracts to see.  When the bandages were removed, they immediately praised their “Dear Leader” and shouted joyously with arms raised (like a worship service) because they could finally look at the “Dear Leader’s” face in a portrait.  It reminded me of the miracle accounts of Jesus in the gospels.  It’s scary.

One scene in the documentary shows the Korean border with a soldier from North and South Korea (and U.S. military) staring each other down on their respective sides like gunslingers waiting for the other to make the first move.

I was sad about Christopher Hitchens’ death.  I have such mixed emotions about Kim Jong Il’s death.  I thought of him as one of the most dangerous men in the world.  It breaks my heart that this nation has been held captive from freedom but even worse, from the truth of Christ.  Once again, I am sad at the thought of anyone in eternal condemnation, including Kim Jong Il.  But, I am also sad at the thought of those in North Korea who are unreached and unengaged and are dying without Christ.  Perhaps I have some hope for them right now.

 We need to pray for North Korea.  I don’t really know what else to do, which is good, because I don’t think there is anything better to do.  We don’t know if Kim Jong Un will simply continue the status quo or be of a different mind.  Keep in mind he has been groomed for this.  We don’t know if his power is solidified or if there is great imbalance and turmoil internally at this point.  Will this make things better or worse?  All we know is that change has the potential for new vistas, and I am praying for them.

Pray for the gospel in North Korea.  Pray for any believers that might exist there.  Pray that Christian influences in China and South Korea might be so powerful that North Korea’s tightly guarded borders are not impervious to the testimony of Christ.  Pray for Kim Jong Un that God would work in His life even like He did with the pagan Persian emperor Cyrus who granted permission for the Israelites to rebuild Jerusalem.  Pray, today, for the gospel in North Korea.

Death of an Atheist

It’s a sad day.  Christopher Hitchens died last night.  I only heard about it this morning.

As a Christian pastor, you might think I would be happy that a belligerent opponent of Christianity like Hitchens is dead.  But I’m not.  I truly feel sad about the whole thing.  In my opinion, last night he met the God of the universe that he did not believe in.  In my opinion, Hitchens must have thought, “I missed this one big time.”  In my opinion, he was cast out from His presence and eternally condemned.  And I am not happy at all about that.  It breaks my heart.

I first encountered Hitchens years ago while on a flight.  I can’t remember when it was or where I was going.  I was alone or maybe just sitting alone, apart from my family or traveling friends.  I really don’t remember.  No, he didn’t sit in the seat next to me and so obviously no chat was begun between us.  That would have been much more interesting.  Actually, I sat next to a young man who had Hitchen’s best-selling book, entitled “God is Not Great.”  With a title like that, I couldn’t ignore it.  It was Hitchen’s atheist manifesto, in which he ranted and raved against religion.  After that flight, I intentionally researched this British-native-become-armchair theologian.

I have always said that Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens were two different kinds of atheists.  Hitchens is a journalist.  He uses theatrics and highly emotive words to get his points across.  I thought of him more as a showman than a scientist or a philosopher.  So you can understand why I dismissed him.

Before you throw this guy in with all the other atheists as a liberal thinker towing the party line, you should learn more about him.  This guy is hard to nail down.  He hated religion, not just Christianity.  Many Christians today are concerned about anti-Christian positions that give passes to the other religions of the world.  You don’t have to worry about that with Hitchens.  He was very equal in his hate of all religions.

With Christianity, he simply pointed out the evil that supposed Christians have caused in the world: Salem witch trials, Crusades, KKK, Inquisition, and a plethora of wars.  Christians have not helped our cause through the years.  I would agree that Christian institutions and people have been the cause of great evil in the world.  How could we deny this?  But those things aren’t true Christianity.  It simply is a fallacy that the mistakes of some completely vilify the whole.  But Hitchens wouldn’t have given me an ear on this and would claim that the foundation of Christianity, especially its exclusivity, leads to such extreme acts of evil.

How’s this for contradiction.  Early in his life, he became a famed and self-professed liberal in every sense of the word:  morally, politically, and philosophically.  That is, until he began to criticize his own.  For instance, Hitchens is a guy who claimed that life begins at conception, was outraged at Bill Clinton’s sex scandal, and supported George Bush in his fight against terrorism.  On that platform alone, some of you would have voted for him.  In fact, Hitchens supported Bush’ 2004 election.  Catch the irony:  one of the most famous atheists in the world supporting the same candidate that the majority of the religious-right supports.  Hitchens was a humanist and a hedonist (consuming large amounts of alcohol and cigarettes) with often surprisingly conservative stances.  For Hitchens, 9/11 was just further proof that religion was evil, and it fueled his hatred of Muslims.  Of course, he equally despised Christianity.  Sometimes politics makes for strange bedfellows.

I can’t help but think about the argument for God’s existence by Blaise Pascal, often called “Pascal’s Wager.”  I will share it by applying it to Hitchens (an atheist) and myself (a believer).  Here’s the wager:  If Hitchens was right in his beliefs, then last night he lost nothing.  Last night, he simply stopped existing, and that is that.  However, if he was wrong, then last night he met the God he did not believe in and found that he lost life’s greatest quest.  When I die, if I am wrong in my beliefs, then I have lost nothing – I am in the same situation as Hitchens.  If I am right, then I have gained everything.  Pascal claimed that believers had the possibility of gaining everything at best and losing nothing at worst, but non-believers could not gain everything and could possibly lose everything.

I think Hitchens lost.  Others can disagree.  Regardless, I am sad about this.  I take no joy in Hitchens death, because it was the worst thing that could happen to him.  He died with no hope, and his family has no hope today.  They have finality and loss without redemption and reunion.  That’s heartbreaking for me, not only for this individual, but for all in the world who are in the same boat.

But I must say:  I’m tired of Christians hating their enemy.  Especially since Jesus taught and modeled a bold love for enemies.  Love has no grace until it is given to those who oppose, annoy, harm, or hurt us.  On top of this, if we hate Hitchens and others like him then we prove him right.  We present ourselves as just another man-made religion, with no signs of divine fingerprints upon us.  Hitchens was right in his critique of religion.  Religion kills and fuels hate and pride.  Apostle Paul would whole-heartedly agree, calling religion “the letter that kills.”  But what Hitchens missed is that Christianity is not religion.  Religion is man-made personal justification.  It is the human attempt at self salvation.  Religion without Jesus is death, shame, and blindness.  Christianity is full of grace, infused into our lives through the gracious death of Jesus Christ.  It’s redemption. Christianity is relationship.  Christianity is the dynamic force of God graciously transforming us to people of love and truth.  As Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch put it in their book “ReJesus,” Christianity is anti-religion.  Christianity is Christ, but it is nearly always in danger of becoming something else by the people who claim it.

For some reason, Hitchen’s death has made me love him more.  Through empathy, I care about his destiny.  Through grace, I want something better for him than what he got.  I mourn this man who I never knew.  I mourn the tragic state of all unbelief, whether it would be atheism or theism that excludes Christ.  In both cases, I mourn.

It’s strange that the exclusive claim of Christianity is what Hitchens disliked so much about my faith, and yet it is that same exclusive claim that is making me love him and grieve him more.  Exclusivity should not ever make us more proud and condescending of unbelievers.  It should make us mourn with tears that fuel our passion to seek and save those who are lost.

“Undercover Boss” – New Series at HWC

My name is Nathan Joyce.  I am the Senior Pastor at Heartland Worship Center.  And I am going undercover.  Much like the hit TV show “Undercover Boss,” I am going to disguise myself and covertly inspect different areas of our church.  You better keep your eyes wide open, because I could be spying on you.  I want to see how things really work, and I want to see what people really say about me when I’m not around – gulp! 

“Undercover Boss” is the title of our new worship series at Heartland Worship Center, beginning this Sunday, December 4th, and continuing through January 1st.  Each week, you will see my exploits of espionage in a different area of the church.  I am doing it all in the name of promoting this series, one that highlights the fact that, at Christmas, the boss of the universe arrived as one of us, disguised in flesh and blood.  Not only did He successfully infiltrate our world, but in the meantime, He showed us how things were meant to be.  The church can look at no better place to gain its identity than the character of Christ - the universe’s “undercover boss.”

Penn State, Syracuse, and the Ineqauality of Sin

“All sin is the same.”  I have heard this line of thinking for most of my life.  I like the heart behind it.  It reminds us that our sin is destructive and trying to justify it as a “lesser” sin by comparing it to the sins of others is a waste of time.  No such scale exists.  But the truth is, sin knows very little of equality.  It doesn’t treat every situation or sinner the same.  We need to look no further than the alleged sexual abuse cases involving Jerry Sandusky ofPennStateand Bernie Fine of Syracuse for proof. 

Before we think about those particular cases, let me make sure that you’re tracking my exact point by qualifying what I am saying.  Any one sin, no matter how we might rate its degree of severity, is enough to put a person in the category of “sinner” and to condemn him or her for eternity.  Galatians 3:10 makes it clear that to be righteous before God, we would have to continuously keep all the laws of God and not sin once.  This means that every sin has the ability to make a person lost and in need of salvation.  If you robbed a store and the police came to rescue you for it, and you admitted to robbing the store but also made a case that you broke no other laws including traffic laws on the way to and from the robbery, they will still arrest you.  They are not interested in giving you credit for the laws you didn’t break.  They want justice for the laws you did break.  It only takes one broken law to make us a law-breaker and one sin to make us a sinner.  This is why we are all sinners in need of salvation through Christ. 

Furthermore, it is important to remember that the problem of sin is one of nature and not just behavior.  In other words, our problem with sin is not just that we occasionally commit behaviors that are sinful.  Our problem is that we are sinful in our hearts and our nature is corrupt.  In other words, if by willpower and environmental reinforcement you are able to be a decent citizen, you have not impressed God.  He knows your heart and not only what you have done, but what you are capable of doing.  Some are saved at a young age before they have developed enough to use their sinful nature to its fullest.  They might think they have not sinned all that badly, but they need to realize they have the same disease of sinfulness as the rest of humanity, including those they deem as the worst.  In other words, given the right circumstances, the disease of sin would have produced in us all the behaviors we see in other sinners. 

With that hopefully (somewhat) settled, I would like to share with you about the inequality of sin.  To do so, I will refer to the situations with the coaches mentioned above. 

First, sin is not equal in its damage.  While all sin can separate us from God, it is also clear that every sin doesn’t do equal damage to its victims.  There is a reason we are all outraged about the sexual abuse that allegedly took place with these coaches.  We know the damage done by these sins is gigantic.  This doesn’t make lying or gossiping right by any means.  In the right situations, those sins can mount up to destroy people’s lives as well.  We need to be convicted of all sin, but it is clear that certain sins leave deeper damage than others. 

Second, sin is not equal in its publicity.  What really hurts our hearts about these cases with the coaches is that we realize this sort of abuse happens a lot and often never gets reported or revealed.  Now, let me say clearly that all sins have consequences, but some are revealed publically more than others; sin never lets us know who will be exposed the most.  We know this to be true, because we have sinned in some ways that didn’t get exposed to other people (but of course it was exposed to God).  Don’t get me wrong, there are still consequences.  I have sinned in private ways in my life that didn’t get exposed, but this sin continues to ache me from time to time as I remember it.  The internal consequences are many.  Unresolved and private guilt can kill the heart like a cancer in our spirit.  But, let’s be honest and acknowledge that some sins don’t get publically reported but live in the darkness of privacy. Sandusky and Fine should offer a warning to us all.  All of our sin is subject to publicity; none of us are so covert that we can assure ourselves we won’t be exposed.  God somehow redeems publically-exposed sin by using it to warn the rest of us about our private struggles, ones which could be public in a heartbeat.  Have you fully listened to the warnings in these public cases?  There is time for us to turn away from destructive habit

So is all sin the same?  Well, I guess the answer is “yes” and “no.”  It all has the ability to condemn us, causing us need of a savior.  But, in an earthly sense, sin doesn’t care about equality in terms of damage or publicity.  It simply tries to wreak havoc in our lives.  Praise God who has sent His son – Jesus, who is supreme over sin and its curse by defeating it on the cross!

The Lamb

 You hand over your tickets to the show.  You search for your seat, settle in and wait for it to begin.  People are chattering all around you.  Finally, the lights dim.  Everyone stops talking and becomes still.  A spotlight bursts on the stage.  The curtain is ready to open.  It splits apart and rumbles to its place, leaving the stage open for your eyes to gaze upon.  This is the moment you have waited for.  Finally, what was hidden is now revealed. 

The word “revelation” means unveiling.  It has the meaning of zipping back the curtains to see what is behind it.  When the curtain rips open we find ourselves looking at… a lamb?  This lamb is Jesus.  Now that He is unveiled, we get a picture of His beauty, glory, fame, and deserving celebration.  What a scene it is!  It’s more than our eyes can take in and our senses can contain.  Worthy is the Lamb!  Worthy is the Lamb!  Worthy is the Lamb! 

 Several months ago, I sensed the Lord telling me to spend my devotional time in the book of Revelation.  I thought this must have been a mistake.  “The book of Revelation is for dissection, not devotion,” I thought to myself.  I resisted and told the Lord that I didn’t think any book that had beasts, dragons, false prophets, and ghostly martyrs spooking altars could be useful for spiritual nourishment.  Why not send me to the Psalms, the Gospels, or even Paul’s writings?  God answered, “I know what it is useful for; I wrote it.”  So I read the book of Revelation not looking for the meaning of symbols or trying to form a chronology of events, but simply looking for the glory of Jesus.  I found that this book more vividly portrays the supremacy of Jesus than any other book in the Bible.  In fact, it starts by naming the book, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.”  Jesus is the protagonist and the center of the book. 

This series seeks to see the unveiling of Jesus in all of His splendor in the book of Revelation, so that we are changed and more fully living saturated by His glory.  The worship series, entitled The Lamb, started last Sunday at Heartland Worship Center and continues for several weeks to come.  All HWC services can be seen at:  http://sc.fhview.com/sc_customplayer/seriesitems/1/119280.

Why We Must Pray

When you do something for God, it is more dangerous to succeed at it without praying than to fail at it while praying. 

Through prayer we remind ourselves how much we need God to expand His kingdom.  When we are successful in ministry without prayer we subtly and slowly begin to think that we are sufficient without Him.  We would never say this or edit our creeds to fit this sort of thinking, but it will happen any way without us meaning for it to happen. 

When we pray, we stop our actions for a few moments and in doing so we confess to God and ourselves that our actions are not ultimately important in comparison to God’s actions.  Prayer is the ultimate confession that God is at work in the world, in our lives, and in our ministries.  To trade our prayer for more effort is to confess that ministry is all up to us.  Our stillness in prayer speaks volumes and the message it speaks is one that we must hear daily:  no matter how competent or talented we become, we are in need of God’s unseen hand to be at work for anything to be eternally significant. 

We need daily prayer and not just prayer in times of difficulty.  Those who pray only periodically when in a jam have indicated that God is merely their default when they have tried everything else.  Daily prayer is something different.  It is the confession of a life lived in reliance upon Father, Son, and Spirit.  It is a shaping discipline as a daily reminder that God is needed every moment and in every situation if we are truly going to live for the fame and glory of Jesus. 

If this is true then we pray not only to influence the world, but also to align ourselves with the spiritual reality of our desperate need for God which is a reality that our natural delusions will not allow if we do not confess that need through daily prayer. 

Start today.  You don’t have to become a monk.  Take a few moment and pray for the glory of Christ in your life situations and output.  Then do it again tomorrow.  And the next day.  And the next . . .

Secret Place

Several years ago my car broke down in the middle of a busy intersection.  I had already experienced a lot of trouble with it and this was the last straw.  I called a tow truck and sent it to the mechanic.  After the mechanic looked at it for a while he came to give me his diagnosis.  Was it the engine?  Did I snap a belt or clog something (I know nothing about cars)?  Nope.  I ran out of gas.  Plain and simple.  No matter how much you fill up your car with gas, eventually it will run out. 

This is true of our lives spiritually, too.  No matter how great our spiritual victories or how much depth we have had in our relationship with Christ in the past, they will not last.  They will run out and you will need to fill your tank again.  You will need fresh bread to eat because the stale bread of yesterday will no longer satisfy.  You need a “new song” to sing as the psalmist says as well as the worshippers in heaven in the book of Revelation (Rev. 5:9).  To do this, you will need to invest in your relationship with Christ through prayer, Bible Study, and worship in the secret place. 

Jesus uses the phrase “secret place” to describe our private time with God.  He tells us to do our charitable deeds in secret (Matt. 6:1-4), pray in secret (Matt. 6:5-7), and fast in secret (Matt. 6:16-18).  Jesus is not opposed to public expressions of our faith.  In fact, Jesus does charitable deeds and prays in public.  The point He is making is that true Christian spirituality means that our lives in secret fuel our public lives.  To live a public spiritual life but lack investments into your spiritual depth in private is pure hypocrisy.  Also, it is impossible to have a potent private spiritual life and it not influence our public faith expressions.  Therefore, our private and public spiritual lives are deeply connected in a way that powerfully emphasizes the need to nourish our spiritual lives in the private or secret place.  What you do there will affect the rest of your life. 

Now, it is possible to feign spiritual depth in public without engaging God in the secret place.  You can do it for a while, but eventually you will run out of gas.  It is in the secret place that Christ becomes supreme in our lives.  We aren’t in need of a newly acquired and unique spiritual experience, but rather a fresh encounter with the same Jesus who is the fount of all of our blessings.  It is in the secret place that we prepare for a life of faithful imitation of Christ.  It is in the secret place that our true heart is revealed.  In other words, you are what you feel and think when no one else can hear you much more than who you are when others are watching.   It is in the secret place that we are truly formed to be like Christ. 

I am writing this today out of my own experience.  I have found myself in a dry season and have recently realized that I am spending my life investments on the public place rather than the secret place – in ministry rather than prayer.  My worth and joy have been coming from ministry rather than ministry that springs forth from the worth and joy I have in Christ.  The difference is huge.  Stillness is hard for me.  It always has been.  But, I can say that I am being renewed in my time with God and I sense that my life is becoming more Christlike through my time in the secret place. 

If you are weary, check out your secret place.  That might be the problem. 

If you are doubting, take a look at the nourishment or lack there of in the secret place. 

If you are just in a funk, pause for a sabbath and fill the tank once again in the secret place. 

Whatever you think of when nothing else is going on in your life is what occupies your secret place.  Christ wants to be supreme over your secret life.  For if Christ is not supreme of the secret places of our lives, then He is not supreme at all.