the pursuit

At a Jonah Ministries winter camp, my thinking was challenged in a great way.

I'd heard the familiar verse before:

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace,

Along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

2 Timothy 2:22

But I had never considered the coherence of the two admonitions: flee and pursue. What Paul is saying is one and the same.

By fleeing one thing, you are inherently pursuing another. When I was a child, I would often flee the "big tickle monster" and run to my mom, who would save me. In this one action I was fleeing the thing I feared, and pursuing (running toward) safety and comfort.

In this life, nothing is different. When you are called to flee youthful passions/sin, you are called to pursue righteousness/Christ and vice versa. Stop trying so hard to flee sin. Pursue Christ.

this is. the pursuit.

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re:Generation

re:Generātion exists to engage young adults in gospel-centered community focused on worship, mission and leadership development.

re:Generātion exists to catalyze a response to God’s person, work and word that affects and penetrates every aspect of life.

re:Generātion exists to equip and send its members—as individuals and communities—into the world around them to “seek and save the lost."

re:Generātion exists not to replace the local church but to embrace and support it by providing both small and large group gatherings committed to propelling their members into full participation within the body of Christ.

re:Generātion exists to convey and communicate the centrality of Christ to the gospel and the gospel to all of life.

For more information on the ministry of re:Generation, visit re:Generation's blog.

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god's plans for you aren't about you

One of the beauties of Christ that I often forget is His persistence and steadfastness and action in my life. Here's what I read the other day:

Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You preserve my life;

You stretch out Your hand against the wrath of my enemies,

And Your right hand delivers me.

The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me;

Your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.

Do not forsake the work of Your hands.

Psalm 138:7-8

That is crazy! To think that the God who sits in heaven and does as He pleases would take a personal interest in my life-enough to preserve it and deliver it-is astounding. But then to read the last part and understand that God saves my life, because He has a plan for it, and that His plan will come to pass, is so glorious!

It's so glorious because it's ALL about JESUS! The hope of God remembering the plans He has for man is fulfilled in Christ. All of God's business is about His Son. His plans for you and me are centered around His plans for Christ. All the purposes He has for us are summed, and completed and lead up to the glorious return of Christ:

I am sure of this: that He who began a good work in you

will bring it to completion at the day of Christ.

Philippians 1:6

God is using every moment of every day to do "good work." Though the work may seem painful, unpleasant, dirty, or just boring, it is good! And that work will be finished at the final, ultimate exaltation of Christ.

As I'm pondering these things, I'm overwhelmed at how Christ-centered God is! He acts in us to magnify Christ. He began a good work in us so that Christ might be the final exclamation point! He has plans for us that revolve around Christ. How beautifully and rightly selfish He is!

O Lord, do not forsake the work of Your hands!

But through my life reveal and magnify Christ!

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don't stop praying

I was recently able to spend some good, rich time in the Psalms, and observed something that I'd never noticed before.

To You I lift up my eyes, O You who are enthroned in the heavens!

Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,

as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress,

so our eyes look to the Lord our God till He has mercy upon us.

Psalm 123:1-2

I learned a few things about myself and how I pray in this passage. I realize that I don't pray enough. I pray. But I pray for something a couple times and call it good, as though God is able to act because I merely asked Him for a favor. But clearly there are two conclusions to be drawn from this text that contradict the form of prayer I'm accustomed to, and challenge me to pray differently.

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1. God is merciful.

If we can only grasp the fact that yes, God is just, and yes, God is majestic, and yes, God is sovereign, and yes, God is above all things, and yes, God is omnipotent, but yes, God is merciful, that ought to radically change the way we pray. 157 times the word "mercy" is used in the Bible. Most of these references are people of faith begging to God to have mercy or to show His mercy to them. The beauty of the mercy of God is that it is not weak. His mercy displays His strength. We often associate mercy with weakness in emotion or weakness in will, but God, in his justice and strength chooses to display mercy to the sons of men. God is merciful and is interested in the affairs and struggles and troubles of your life, but He is not lacking power to save.

2. Pray until God acts.

The fact that God is merciful ought to drive us to beg Him to show His mercy, as it did the psalmist. But how does this work? Does God pay special attention to people who pray more than others? Does God hear louder the prayers the people who talk more than others? Does God give more consideration to the prayers of those who pray instead of sleep or eat?

My initial response would be to say "no" to each of those, because God hated the prayers of the Pharisees. I am, however, confident in saying that the more prayers (the more expressions of dependence and pleas for salvation) the more glory God receives. The restlessness and humility and ferocity and faithfulness in prayer motivates God to act. It's as though the psalmist is saying "God, we will not stop begging You to act until You do!"

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I recently asked several friends "Why do you pray?" A lot of the answers were surprising to me. Some went along the lines of: "because it makes me feel good." True. Others: "because it's a chance for me to just let everything go." True. But it's so much more. John Piper summarizes prayer like this in His book Desiring God:

Prayer is the open admission that without Christ we can do nothing. And prayer is the turning away from ourselves to God in the confidence He will provide the help we need. Prayer humbles us as needy and exalts God as wealthy.

You see that prayer does much more than make you feel good. Prayer is the avenue of God's glory being released, revealed, and reveled in. It is both a means and product of His glory. Prayer is all about God.

As you pray, beg of God to act. Beg God to show mercy for the sake of His name and reputation. And don't stop until He does. And when He does, don't stop then either.

Additional Reading: John 14:13, John 15:5-7, Psalm 123, Psalm 119, John 4:9-10, Desiring God pp. 137-156

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the preaching is easy. the practicing is hard.

James Emery White on his blog "Serious Times" writes a challenging post about practicing what you preach.

“How much life insurance do you have?”

According to a recent blog by Seth Godin, Zig Ziglar liked to say that -with that one question, you could tell if someone was a successful life insurance agent. “If they’re not willing to buy it with their own money, how can they honestly persuade someone else to do so?”

Godin went on to note that if you are in the music business, but you never buy tickets or downloads, can you really empathize with the people you’re selling to?

His favorite: If you work for a non-profit and you don’t give money to charity, what exactly are you doing in this job? “And the shame of it,” Godin adds, “is that this inaction on their part keeps them from experiencing the very emotion that they try so hard to sell.”...

Godin is on to something here. Something that runs much deeper than business. Namely, how easy it is to embrace an ideal, a value, even a mission, and not participate in it yourself; to exhort others to do what you yourself do not...

For example, I interact with a good number of church leaders, and I am sensing a breakdown precisely along these lines.
They attempt to lead a church that reaches the unchurched, and admonish their folk to reach out to their unchurched friends and invite them to attend, but they could not name a single unchurched person that they have personally invited.
They desire to start churches filled with people who will die to themselves for the sake of the kingdom, but neither they nor their family seems to be willing to serve in the bowels of the ministry, whether mopping a floor or tending a child...

Result? Ministry becomes little more than a way to create a platform for our own fulfillment and ambition. And then, as Godin insightfully notes, we do not experience the life we so energetically try to sell.
And the more that disconnect grows, the less we will succeed.

I am far from immune from such temptations. So let me put myself into the mix with every other leader and say that for many of us, here’s a great New Year’s question to ask:

“How much life insurance do we have?”

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