The Glocal Church

For the past several weeks, the Holy Spirit, from some unknown reason, until recently, has kept directing my personal devotional study time in God’s Word to Ephesians Chapter 4. I wasn’t really sure why, until recently, when an otherwise trusted and valued friend acted toward me in a completely foreign way! I had no understanding why this person had acted in this way. I seemed to be completely in the dark regarding this friend’s abnormal behavior directed to me. Someone who was always a close friend had suddenly acted in a way that not only confused me but wounded me. That’s when it hit me, and when it hit me, it fell like an anvil, crushing almost every emotion within me…I felt paralyzed in that I was at a complete loss for words…Unknowingly, God was teaching me a powerful lesson from which I have grown.

Unfortunately, instead of praying about it and turning it over to God, I allowed the wound to fester and infect my heart with bitterness, anger, and resentment! Before I had time to even step back and take an honest assessment of the situation, my heart had become bitter and angry. This is where Ephesians Chapter 4 came into play and provided a clear but painful reality for me.

Ephesians 4:30 – 32 states:  “And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he is the one who has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of malicious behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.” (NLT) 

Instead of responding to my circumstances in a manner that would have honored God, I brought sorrow to His Holy Spirit! 

With this clear imperative from God’s Word, I quickly saw the ugliness in my own heart, and then my heart was broken because I had broken the heart of God. The only way to reconcile my sinful actions of allowing bitterness and anger to take hold of my heart was to purge the bitterness in my heart and restore it. I had to seek and offer forgiveness. Through this painful process, which fed on all of my insecurities, an amazing thing happened! My heart grew bigger, and not bitter! My heart grew bigger in my understanding of God’s incredible grace and forgiveness, and bigger by making more room for God and less room for me…As John the Baptist said in John 3:30: “He must become greater and I must become less.”  

I often ask myself these questions: “In my vocational ministry, do I aspire to make the headlines or go to the margins?” “Do I seek to gain favor by those in my congregation and by my peers, with accolades and praises, or do I want to go to the margins, a place where many of  life’s outcast, the hurting, and those whom our society have deemed unlovable often migrate?”

In providing an honest assessment, I must confess, I more often seek the headlines or the praises and accolades by those important to me and the ministry in which God has blessed me. I rarely venture out to the margins, where real and hurting people reside. People who so desperately need to know the Hope of Glory that resides in me.  I’m not proud of this badge I wear. In fact, I’m terribly ashamed, because I more often seek man’s approval over Christ’s direction for my life.

With that confession I must ask the question…not: “What would Jesus do?” bur rather “Where would Jesus go?” God’s Word is very clear on this. Jesus always went out of his way to go to the margins of life, where the sinners of His day took up residence. The Gospels chronicle this in detail. John Chapter 8, describes the adulteress who was caught in adultery and facing an assured stoning by her accusers. However, Jesus disarmed her accusers and forgave her. Also, John Chapter 4 describes the Samaritan women at the well, who was living a life of promiscuity.  Jesus met her at the well in the middle of the day. It was a well where no Samaritans and sinners like her went at peak hours, but at mid-day, when the well was not crowded. Jesus met her there and provided her living water in Him, that if anyone drank from, they would never suffer spiritual thirst again.

The Gospels go on to descriptively detail how Jesus always ventured to the margins, with tax collectors, thieves, and lepers, among many others. Those which their society shunned as “sinners,” “unclean,” and “unlovable,” even those whom the religious leaders of the day referred to as “scum,” Matthew 9:11 (NLT).

Jesus was not concerned at all with making the headlines. In fact John 7:4 states “No one does anything in secret while he’s seeking public recognition.” Also, in  Matthew Chapter 6, Jesus was recorded saying: “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”  

Nevertheless, Jesus assuredly made the headlines quite often. Those headlines probably read something like: “This Jesus is a Friend of Sinners!”  What the religious leaders of the day meant as an insult, I believe Jesus wore as a badge of honor, “Friend of Sinners!”                     

Today as I watched my precious little first grader get lost in the great abyss that is the first grade hall in her elementary school on her first day of school…My heart was saddened…She’s growing up so fast…so fast that it seems not even a picture could capture the essence of a moment.

As I drove away from her school and on to my office, I had to fight the tears…I know some say that “Real Men” don’t cry…but “Real Dads” do!!!

While at work I was reading a bit…I read an excerpt from Robert Benson’s Between the Dreaming and the Coming True. This particular quote resonated throughout my soul…Benson wrote: ”‘Does God Like You?’ I asked a five-year old little girl. She stifled a grin. She is a compassionate soul. ’Yep,’ she said easily, confidently, certainly. ‘How do you know?’ ‘Because of the Way He talks to me. He just likes me. I recognize it in His voice.’”

At that moment, I realized that the abyss of the first grade hallway, on the first day of school, might have been a bit of an emblishment on my part…However, she will undoubtedly face both great triumphs and tragedies along life’s many roads…My one prayer, however, is that she will always recognize the voice of her Heavenly Father!   

Dreams are the fuel that drives the ideas, which spawn the innovations, that evoke changes in people lives that only God will fully know the extent!  

I’m a “dreamer”…or as our contemporary society would define, a “visionary.”  However, I’m also a strategist….The fact is, one cannot see a dream to fruition without a strategy to achieve it! “If we’re not strategically moving forward, then we’re just settling for whatever comes our way!” I fully believe that! However, it all begins with a dream, which is typically born from a God-given burden…See Nehemiah 1:1-4. 

In regards to dreams I want to borrow some classic and contemporary quotes and lyrics regarding dreams, and the power that lies within them. The Christian band “Salvador” has a song titled “Shine.” Here are a few of the lyrics to this powerful song:                                                                                   

I woke up to another day
Another day to celebrate
Your beauty and your mystery
Is more than any eye can see
I’m not the man I was before
With you my life is so much more
Break the chains and open doors
To a world I can’t ignore                                                                                                                 

Lord let me shine
Shine like the moon
A reflection of you
All that I do
Lord let me be
A light for your truth
Light of the world
I want to be used
To shine for you    

Like the song says, we should shine like the moon, a light that reflects the hope of Glory that lives within us!

In regards to those Christian lyrics I’m reminded of the 19^th century Irish poet, Oscar Wilde when He penned this notable quote:  “A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” 

Additionally, contemporary author, Bruce Wilkerson wrote this fable, in his book The Dream Giver: “Ordinary was walking away from the comfortable center of Familiar, where almost every Nobody lived. He was heading toward the Boarder, where almost no Nobodies ever went.”   

The bottom line is that we cannot remain static and follow God!  We’ve got to keep moving, if only by the light of the moon, in which we illuminate the light of the true Son! We must venture out to the edge of the unfamiliar, or move away from our known and safe environments, out to the margins…Because it’s in the margins of life where the hurting and wounded people live, those who need to know the Joy that resides in us!  

I challenge you to dream big dreams, and take giant leaps of faith, especially in regards to the work of God, for which He has called us…

To quote Sir Winston Churchill, “Never give in, never, never, never, never…Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”  

 …One final question: “If not us, then who?”