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I often wonder if I have a burden for this world – if I love those around me to share with them the freedom of Jesus Christ.
Do I recognize their need for fulfillment in the only One who can fulfill? Am I sensitive to their need for purpose, a purpose only He can give? Can I overcome my personality – my desire to stick to my own business and not bother with other people – to be authentic with them and share the Light of my life with them?
The believers at Thessalonica had no problem in doing this, none whatsoever.
In verse 2 we see that God was present with them, He gave them help and boldness and courage.
His Spirit was there, in their midst and in their hearts in a very real way. He empowered them and strengthened them.
I also often wonder – when I do share the Gospel, why I do.
Do I want public acclaim?
“I have led three people to Christ in the past year.”
Do I want public recognition?
“Look how big our church is.”
Do I want public approval?
“I must be a good preacher, look at how many people raised their hand after my sermon.”
God purified the desires of the believers at Thessalonica; there were no ulterior motives or secondary purposes. God selected them, instilled them with a burden for their lost and dying world, empowered them, and was confident they could share His truth with their community.
The Thessalonian believers had no ulterior motives, they simply wanted those around them to know the Lord and love Him. They had no fancy methods, simply His Spirit and His truth.
What are my motives in forming relationships? Do I desire fellowship? Do I love non-believers enough to share God’s Word with them, that they may know Him?
How bold am I? How daring? Who do I try and please? What am I afraid of? Who do I fear?
My the sovereign God, who inspires us with life and truth, have free reign over our souls, to transform us daily for His purposes. May we have no agenda but His kingdom, and no purposes but to worship Him.
Each of us have something that we chase, something that we desire above all else.
We may not be able to put our finger on it – name it or identify it – but it is there. Haunting us and taunting us, inviting us evermore to long for it and ache for it.
Identity. Purpose. Meaning. Happiness. Popularity. Contentment. Success.
I don’t know what it is, but I do know this: What we desire shapes who we are. What we long for – what it is in life that our heart breaks over not having – defines our very existence.
In the book of Genesis, we find Jacob working for a man named Laban. Jacob falls in love with one of Laban’s daughters, Rachel, and desires to marry her. Laban draws up a contract with Jacob in which Jacob would work for Laban for seven years in return for marrying Rachel.
However, Laban is deceitful, and after the seven years are up, he tricks Jacob, putting Rachel’s sister Leah in the marriage bed instead of Rachel. Jacob awakes the next morning and – realizing he was duped – is so overwhelmed with love for Rachel that he pledges another seven years of work in return for the right to marry Rachel.
In the same way, we desire something. We all are willing to sacrifice – to give of ourselves – to obtain what we desire.
We seek affirmation, emotional security, and love, and often seek it in the un-loveliest of places.
We – if given the chance – will alter our lives in some way to obtain what it is we desire; which always bears some significance on those around us.
So the question is, what we you desire? What are we seeking so feverishly? What is the ends by which we measure all our means?
What we desire will shape who we are; what do we desire?
I currently work part-time as a substitute teacher to supplement my time (and income) while I serve my home church as youth pastor and complete seminary.
I cherish this opportunity for the interaction it affords me with youth in the public school system.
I cherish this opportunity on most days.
Thursday was not one of those days.
I was teaching 7th grade communication, and the students were allotted 40 minutes to complete their response to a writing prompt.
The prompt: write a three paragraph essay on a time in your life when you were pleasantly surprised or excited by something that happened.
One young boy asked me repeatedly if he could make something up for his essay. I said no, this was to be a factual account.
I didn’t understand what was happening.
Another teacher motioned me over and explained that some of the kids had never experienced anything pleasant, surprising, or exciting, and often resorted to making up things for these sorts of assignments.
My heart broke a little.
But – sadly – that wasn’t the end of my learning experience for the day.
I was reading through some of the essays turned in by the class – I will summarize the contents of the one that caught my eye:
It was a few days before Valentines day, and I heard Mommy and Daddy fighting in the kitchen…Daddy stormed out of the front door, I never saw him again. Mommy was in the kitchen crying. My brother tucked me into bed early hat night. A few days later, Mommy told me her and Daddy were getting a divorce….Just before Halloween Mommy brought home Fred for us to meet, Fred was going to be our new Daddy. I was excited.
How have we gotten here? How has our culture deteriorated to the place where a little boy has never experienced anything exciting? Where nobody has ever told him he was special? Where nobody has ever loved him? How have we gotten to the place where a sorry excuse for a man can run out on his family, never to return? Where it is normal for a young family to be ripped apart at the seams, only to be piecemealed together mere months later?
Woe is he who speculates until he is blue in the face about what exactly God would have him do, for he who speculates so much he never actually gets to the doing!
Many a liberal theologian has used the analogy of the blind men examining the elephant, each looking at a different part (ear, tail, foot, etc), and then arguing that their experience contained the essence of the elephant. While I have particular disdain for this analogy (for the reason that all paths DO NOT lead to God as the analogy implies; Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father apart from Him), I still find it somewhat helpful in this case.
To be so heavenly minded so as to be of no earthly good finds expression in this analogy: after the blind men examined the elephant, they began to debate whose experience contained the essence of the elephant. Now they were still debating the nature of the elephant some time later, but it had grown weary and wandered away from them!
And so it is for us Christians: I fear far too often we debate over the slightest of issues, only to find ourselves so wrapped up in that very debate we forget to put our faith in action.
Now I am not talking about the essentials of Christianity:
Jesus Christ is the son of God
Salvation is through Christ alone, by grace alone and through faith alone
The Bible is the Word of God, divinely inspired and authoritative for our life.
God is a triune God: 3-in-1 and 1-in-3, representing neither poly nor pantheism.
These things are surely worth debating over, for they are the strong tenets of our faith, the very foundations of it, and are necessary to fulfill the role of the Church as the custodian of the truth.
Conversely, other issues are not worthy of such heated debate, and yet we still find ourselves consumed in their mire, too afraid of offending or being offended. And so we pridefully, stubbornly, miserably stick to our guns at the expense of the body of Christ.
I am not arguing for ecumenalism at the expense of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His Truth; I am instead begging for a focus on the essentials and expedient action for the sake of His kingdom on other issues.
I am arguing for a steadfast gaze on the face of our great and mighty king, and as a result our life will be radiant with the reflection of His glory.
Oswald Chambers said it best:
“Christian workers fail
because they place their desire for their own holiness
above their desire to know God”
Desire to know God, to see His face and pursue Him always, and our lives will reflect that. Follow His lead and fear not, for He will lead.
Focus not so much on what you do or who you do it to, but on Who you are doing it for.
The issue is not so much what you do as it is who you are.
My wife is a full-time high school science teacher, and I work as a substitute teacher in addition to being a seminary student and a youth pastor.
Needless to say, my wife and I have constant interaction with youth.
So let me say this: our youth and our school systems need as much prayer as you can muster.
The casual observer says there is no reason to worry; every generation of parents looks to their child’s social group with horror and disdain.
As far as parents were concerned, the roaring 20′s were wrought with rebellious teens dancing and drinking, the 60′s were full of hippies strung out on LSD, the 70′s were consumed by disco and bell-bottoms, the 80′s saw the birth of MTV, and the 90′s were defined by the grunge and post-grunge movement.
And each generation of parents simply looked at their kids and shook their heads.
Yet each time, the youth came out seemingly unscathed and well-equipped to lead the country into the future.
And so the casual observer would look at the apparent horrors of today’s youth and assume the same will happen: the qualified will mature, grow out of their adolescence, and become adept business professionals, capable of assimilating into the business world, starting a family, and providing the backbone of the country.
I, however, am not so optimistic.
There is one thing that separates today’s youth from generations in times past, and that is postmodernity.
Throughout the early and middle years of this century, modernity was still in full-swing, meaning that objective truth existed somewhere and was capable of being attained. Putting aside the notion of our Judeo-Christian worldview for a second, at the very least everybody agreed that truth existed.
There was a common underpinning of society to which everybody could agree and relate.
There was a single common denominator which leveled the playing field and everybody strove for.
However, the 80′s and 90′s began to feel the very first effects of postmodernity – relativism, plurality, extreme tolerance – and those youth grew into today’s leaders.
And so that segment of the population are now becoming parents, and while they may only mildly influence their children with the faintest hints of postmodernity, their children are seeped in it.
At school and through the media, pluralism and relativism are the war-cries of the culture today.
The baby boomers were influenced by their parents – the so-called Greatest Generation – and worked harder for the American Dream than any who had come before them. They were influenced by their parents and strove to enjoy the freedom their parents had earned. However, that influence has deteriorated over the years.
And today’s youth, rather than being influenced by the Greatest Generation, are influenced by the Tolerant Generation.
Our culture as a whole encourages and teaches the plurality of truth and the acceptance of all; not realizing that in accepting all it affirms none, cutting its own feet out from under it.
The education system, cultural trends, societal norms, moral systems…these are all institutions once desperate for truth that are now held hostage by the culturally dependent nature of truth and the fall of the mighty mettanarrative in favor of the context-driven micronarrative.
And so while there was always a failsafe to fall back on for generations preceding ours – the assumed existence of ultimate truth to guide and direct our efforts – today that does not exist.
So now what are we left with?
The words of the great Puritan Thomas Watson ring in my heart:
Truth is ancient; it’s gray hairs make it venerable; it comes form Him who is the ancient of days.
God is truth, and all truth is His.
Society is turning away from truth as further evidence of its turning its back on God.
As Oswald Chambers would say, society has itself on the throne of its heart and not God.
We need not be surprised and we need not be discouraged:
Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.
– Galatians 6:9
God is good and God is faithful, and God will provide through this season.
Affirm God and glorify His name, and truth will abound.
Seek truth honestly and humbly, and God will reveal Himself to you.
And now, O Lord God, you are God, and your words are true
– 2 Samuel 7:28
God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth
– John 4:24
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
– John 14:6
You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
– Jeremiah 29:13
all around us, people are dying and going to hell.
that is a stark truth; a reality most of us dont acknowledge, a reality most of us dont live in.
i know i dont.
Christ said in Matthew 5 that we are the salt and the light, we are not to lose our flavor and we are not to be put under a basket so as to be hidden from the world.
the idea behind Christ’s analogy of salt in Matthew 5 is one of conductivity. salt was used as a conduit to keep meat warm at the market; it was the middle layer between the flame and the ceramic tiles keeping the meat warm.
am i conduit for the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
am i self-less enough to live beyond myself? to live aware of those around me who are a lost and dying generation, a lost and perverse world?
is that my life? do i seek to be a light? do i even care that all around me friends and family will one day slip into eternity not knowing their Savior and Lord? does it bring anything to bear on the daily activities of my life?
i feel as though my life should emanate Christ – as though i should literally be oozing Holy Spirit out of me.
but complacency haunts me at every turn and threatens to render me useless for His kingdom.
may my focus be His grace and His glory, and may every ounce of life within me yearn to make Him known.
i spoke recently at a gathering, a college fellowship i helped start during my undergraduate years.
things went….poorly to say the least, as far as i was concerned.
it was great to re-connect with old friends and spend time with brothers and sisters in Christ, but my talk left much to be desired.
in looking back i see how i was fully prepared: outline, notes, Bible references, funny stories, real-life illustrations, practical analogies, etc.
yet no matter that i was prepared, i didnt fully prepare myself. my heart and my spirit were not ready to share God’s truth. i was unaware on that night of the privilege and responsibility sitting on my shoulders.
i gave no time or energy to hiding myself behind the cross, that the students would hear Christ. i gave no real time or energy in prayer – either for myself and my words to be His, or for those who came that night and listened.
i approached the evening flippantly and lazily; i spiritually just wasnt ready.
which makes me think….am i burdened with the Truth of the Gospel?
why did i need to cultivate a special preparedness that evening within my spirit? granted there will always be some preparation needed for a engagement of this nature, but why was i caught so off-guard and unprepared?
am i – in even the slightest fashion – prepared to share the truth of Jesus Christ with those around me?
is my heart in a constant state of readiness? am i so aware of the life and joy inside of me that i could at any given second spout forth of the blessings God has seen fit to bestow in my life?
do my attitudes and my actions communicate to those around me in solidarity with my spirit? does my life exhibit Jesus Christ risen and alive inside of me?
too often, i fear not. which leads me to ask….
am i truly burdened with the Gospel?
