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Lord, I don’t want to be a mile-marker on the road of life, that as people pass me by, maybe they notice, maybe they don’t. It doesn’t matter. They continue on in the same direction as before.
But I want to be a fork in the road.
So that when people meet me they must decide which way to go. Because when they meet me, they don’t just meet me. They meet the Christ who lives in me.
~Jim Eliot, from The Shadow of the Almighty, 1956
I like the idea of “What would Jesus do?” I like that concept. But I don’t believe that’s necessarily what the Bible is getting at when it links our beliefs and our behavior. As our theology shapes our practices, I think it’s much more about discovering the character of Christ and acting in concert with that character.
Following the death and resurrection of Jesus, it doesn’t seem like the apostles wondered what Jesus would do if were in their shoes. It wasn’t “What would Jesus do if he were me?” It’s not “What would Jesus do if were here right now?” It looks like the thought of the early Christians and the teachings and example of the apostles was, “Because of what Jesus has done, how should I act?”
“What did Jesus do?”
What decision will I make today that embodies the very character of the God who gave up everything for the sake of the world? What decision right now reflects the integrity of the Christ as he lived and died for the salvation of others? How does my decision today fit in with the eternal purposes of God in Christ?
Forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you. Accept one another as Christ has accepted you. Love one another as God loves you.
It appears to me that the apostle Paul took the truth of the Gospel into account with every single decision he made in life. Every single plan, every move, was made after first considering carefully the Gospel implications. Even something as normal and routine as changing his travel plans was done “in the holiness and sincerity that are from God.” Paul rearranged his schedule “not according to worldly wisdom but according to God’s grace.”
I have conversations from time to time — 20 and 30 minute conversations — about something we’re doing or not doing at our church. Something somebody really likes or something somebody really doesn’t like much at all. Some activity or practice or decision that has this person talking. And I listen to these long, heated, passionate pleas, and not one time does the person mention God. Or Jesus. Not one time does the truth of the Gospel get inserted into the discussion.
The faithfulness of God and the character of Christ must be the determining factor in everything we do as a church of his people and in our own individual ministries and lives.
It’s not so much “What would Jesus do?” It’s more like “Because of what Jesus did, and because of what God is doing through Christ today, what kind of a person am I and what kinds of choices and decisions do I make?
Go Mavs,
Allan
My Jesus is a people person. He absolutely loves a crowd.
Yeah, there were times when our Lord went alone into the desert or climbed a mountain to pray. But it’s much more typical in the Gospels for Jesus to be interacting with people. The eyewitnesses paint a picture of Jesus constantly mixing it up with the multitudes, meeting strangers on the road, hanging out with family and friends. Mostly Jesus is known for eating and drinking with gusto in the homes of sinners and saints, with the prostitutes and the Pharisees, men and women, Gentiles and Jews.
Praying with people. Worshiping with people. Walking with people. Fishing with people. Teaching and debating with people. Laughing and crying with people.
Jesus was a supremely social, communal person. Whatever it was that the Father called the Son to do, he had no interest in doing it by himself. Just a casual glance at Jesus is enough to tell us today that we are fully living as God-created humans, not in our solitude and isolation, but in our relationships and connections with others.
We are people people.
We need God, yes. And we so desperately need one another. You can’t do this faith solo.
Peace,
Allan
We don’t ever come to the cross of Christ to worship his death or to remember the grisly details of that day. We come to the cross — we’re actually drawn to the cross — to see what it looks like for me to die. What is the meaning of my daily dying to myself and dying for Christ? And dying with Christ? What does it look like? How do I do it? And what does it really mean?
People say Jesus died so I don’t have to. No, that’s not right. Jesus died to show us how to.
As holy children of God and disciples of his Christ, we die every day. We participate every day in the eternal dimensions of Jesus’ death.
“I have been crucified with Christ…” ~Galatians 2:20
“I die every day — I mean that, brothers! ~1 Corinthians 15:31
“You died, and your life is now hidden with Christ.” ~Colossians 3:3
Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” We are called to participate in the death of Jesus. We don’t just stand around and ask questions about the death of Christ. We don’t just talk about it and marvel about it. We live it. The death of Jesus shapes everything about the way we live, how we believe and love, why we do what we do.
If we’re going to follow Jesus as his subjects — and we are! — then we’re going to follow him into the pain and darkness of Calvary where he faithfully and fully submitted to our Father’s will and gave his very life for the sake of the world.
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Tomorrow is Warrior Dash. And I’m not quite ready. 
Warrior Dash is a 5K obstacle course highlighted by runs through waist-deep muddy water, climbs over cargo nets and 20-foot hay bales, crawls under barbed wire and through dirty ditches, and jumps over junk cars and pits of fire.
There are runs like this all over the place. Some of them are called Mud Runs. Some are called Jail Breaks. This Warrior Dash is held every year in Roanoke, just down the street from the Texas Motor Speedway. I’d never heard of this, or any other organized obstacle event, until last year when Greg Hardman and his daughter, Emily, ran it together with some of her college friends. His stories and his pictures were truly inspiring. I even used their experience to illustrate a sermon here last spring.
And several of us caught the fever.
Valerie and I made plans to start training in October. I was going to start eating right. I was going to start running more. (By more, I mean just start running. Period.) I was going to lose 15-pounds. I was going to lift weights and really be ready for this thing in April.
I’m not ready.
None of those things happened. Valerie and I have run together at the Northridge Middle School track a total of five 
times since the middle of February. We did two-and-a-half miles last night. We’re going to do three miles this evening.
We’re not ready. But we’re very much looking forward to it. Valerie has always been my little adventurer. She’s excited to be doing something so outrageous with her dad. And this will be something I’ll treasure with her forever.
There are at least a dozen of us from Legacy running the Warrior Dash in the morning: John & Suzanne, Bruce & Cathy, Mike & Lisa, Keith & Beth, Josh (who promises to stay right with me), Jason, Margaret, David and, from what I understand, a whole slew of our younger marrieds.
My goal is to finish in one hour or less. And to not have to be carried out in a stretcher.
Peace,
Allan
What does Christ want us to see in the Garden of Gethsemane? Why did he tell his disciples to watch and pray? Why did he take them with him that night? Why was it so important that they stay awake?
Jesus makes it very clear that night in the garden: he does not want to die. Jesus is sorrowful and troubled. He’s distressed. He’s in agony. He’s facing the most severe test of his life. God is handing him the cup of suffering and death and asking him to drink it. And Jesus doesn’t want to. He shudders in horror at the mission before him. He dreads all of it. His Father is in the process of making him who had no sin to be sin for us. Jesus is walking through the valley of the shadow of death. And he wants another way. And he asks for it.
What an amazing scene. Jesus is in great agony. He cries out to his God, “Deliver me!” He prays out loud to his Father, “Rescue me!” He begs, “Save me from this horrible assignment. Let’s do this another way.”
No dove descends. No thunderous voice from heaven assures, “This is my Son.” Only silence. Silence. God has already spoken. Now it’s up to the Son to obey.
And he does. “Not my will, but yours be done.” Jesus overcomes the silence, he fights off the temptation to do what he wants and, through open and honest prayer, he obeys his Father.
“Watch and pray.” “Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Jesus tells his disciples, “Do this with me. Experience this with me. Watch me. If you’re really going to follow me, you’re going to need to know how to do this.”
Jesus wants us to be awake and present and obedient to the way of the Son and the will of the Father. He wants us to accept trial. He wants us to undergo testing. He wants us to say “no” to the temptations to abandon the cross aspects of our calling. Afterall, it’s so much easier to turn our backs on the crown of thorns and just go to church. It’s so much easier to just settle into our pews and into the comforts of our status quo and potlucks and baby blessings.
If we’re going to follow Jesus as his loyal subjects — and we are! — then we’re going to follow him into the garden. It’s in the garden with Jesus, praying these agonizing prayers, where we really express our trust in God. We trust God in the darkness of our sufferings because God walked through the darkness himself.
God wants us to be in fellowship with the sufferings of his Son and the sufferings of his world. Fervent and faithful prayer is where God equips us and empowers us to do it. A stiff upper lip isn’t going to do it. A fierce resolve won’t cut it. New Year’s resolutions won’t work. It happens through open and honest prayer; raw, from the heart, transparent communication with the Father.
After a night of agonizing prayer, Jesus is ready. “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”
Watch and pray.
Peace,
Allan
My King is not like the rulers of this world. His Kingdom is not of this world. He tells us that. And he shows us that his ways and his methods and his forms are nothing like those of this world.
So why do we keep wanting to use the world’s ways and methods and forms?
Why do we think politics is the way to get things done for God’s Kingdom? Why do we think power and force and voting and petitions and boycotts and campaigns and rallies and protests are the way to accomplish our God’s plans for his creation?
All Christians have to vote Republican because Jesus is against the gay marriage position of the Democrats. No, all Christians have to vote Democrat because Jesus is against the war policies of the Republicans. No, the Church has to support the Republican party because of Jesus’ teachings against abortion. No, the Church has to support the Democratic party because of Jesus’ teachings against the gap between the rich and the poor.
If we’re going to think and talk and act this way, we might as well start waving palm branches like the crowds in Jerusalem who wanted Jesus to overthrow the Roman oppressors and establish an earthly kingdom in Jerusalem. Those people wanted to use Jesus for a political revolt. They wanted national and social and economic revolution in the name of the Messiah. They wanted Roman blood to flow in the streets. Gird your loins and grab your swords! God bless Israel!
If we think and talk and act this way, we’re forcing the children of God to choose and then pledge allegiance to the lesser of worldly evils. Jesus did not come so we could be a part of a refurbished and renewed version of the kingdom of the world. Jesus came so we could be a part of the all-new eternal Kingdom of God!
Jesus will never be President of the U.S.A.
One, because he’s not running. Two, because you wouldn’t vote for him if he were running.
Think about Jesus’ platform. Sell everything you have and give it to the poor! Love your enemies! If Jesus had bumper stickers on the back of the donkey he rode into Jerusalem they would say “Be Last!”
“Vote for Jesus! We’re Going to Die!”
Of course, our King doesn’t come with T-shirts and stickers and buttons and hundred million dollar campaigns. He doesn’t save the world with armies and markets and policies. He saves the world through sacrificial love and suffering and service and grace.
Yes, Jesus came to be King. But instead of being crowned with a gold-plated headdress of jewels, he was crowned with painful and penetrating thorns. He did not bear a warrior’s sword or a royal scepter; he was beaten with a whip and a rod. Instead of sitting on a cusioned throne and ruling, Jesus hung on a tree and died. Jesus willingly, deliberately, goes to his own suffering and death for the sake of the world.
If we follow this King as his subjects — and we do! — then we, too, will follow him into Jerusalem to the place of suffering and sacrifice and death. We will say ‘no’ to status and position and glory and wealth and say ‘yes’ to the giving of our own lives. We will reject power and violence and force and accept God’s will and God’s way even in the midst of terrible personal agony. We will refuse to consider our own needs and, instead, be much more concerned with the needs of those around us.
That’s what it means to follow Jesus. To watch him and imitate him. To determine to be right behind him no matter where he goes.
Peace,
Allan
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