Taking Up Your Cross...DAILY. Yipes!

And He said to them all, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” Luke 9:23

I know we have all heard this verse zillions of times, but God has shown me some stuff about it and in this Note I would like to especially emphasize the importance of making a “daily” commitment to Christ.

Being a Christian is more than just walking down the aisle when you’re in second grade, repeating a prayer, and getting baptized. It is a daily commitment, where you "re-sign" up every single morning. I think a lot of us don’t truly understand what Jesus was calling us to do, because it’s a big deal and our lives should look a whole lot different. (Now let me say up front that salvation is found by grace through faith alone, and when I say re-sign up, I don’t mean your salvation “expires” every night so you have to renew it every morning; I’m saying that we must realize every single day the importance of following Christ.) Jonathan Edwards made 70 resolutions (they’re really good; read them here http://www.reformed.org/documents/Edwards/index.html?mainframe=/documents/Edwards/j_edwards_resolutions.html) and one of my favorites is:
“Resolved, frequently to renew the dedication of myself to God, which was made at my baptism; which I solemnly renewed, when I was received into the communion of the church; and which I have solemnly re-made this twelfth day of January, 1722.” This is what we should be doing!!!

Galatians 2:20 says “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” CRUCIFIED!? That’s certainly not a weak way of putting it. We Americans don’t fully understand this precious concept of crucifixion since it doesn’t really happen all the time, but the crucifixion was totally humiliating, painful beyond words, and you looked a whole lot different by the time it was over.

Do you understand, friends, that we must give up the world to follow Christ? You cannot serve both God and man. You cannot live in both light and darkness. Famous poet Emily Dickinson understood the kind of commitment it takes when you sign up to follow after Christ, but unfortunately she could not give up the world.

She said this when she was FIFTEEN years old to a friend after a Christian revival came to her hometown: “The world allured me and in an unguarded moment I listened to her siren voice. From that moment I seemed to lose interest in heavenly things. Friends reasoned with me and told me of the danger I was in. I felt my danger and was alarmed, but I had rambled too far to return and ever since my heart has been growing harder.” The world beckoned, and she liked it. Later in that letter, she said “I do not feel I could give up all for Christ, were I called to die.” So she didn’t. She was unwilling to surrender.

Surrendering all to Christ is a big deal. The song that made me want to learn sign language was “I Surrender All”, because as it was being interpreted, I almost cried upon seeing the powerful meaning of the words. “Surrender” in ASL is putting your hands up, like when the police come up to you and they’re like “HANDS UP!” so you throw down your loot and you’re like “Ahhh I surrender!” (You can see the sign at http://www.signingsavvy.com/search.php?search=surrender&submitSearch.x=0&submitSearch.y=0) Then “all” (in this context, at least) is motioning head-to-toe all of me, like “allllll o’ dis.” (I’m bad at explaining stuff, sorry hehe.) But anyways, the sign language interpretation so beautifully portrays what we need to do: say “I drop everything, God, and give every bit of me to You.” Jesus died for you (then rose again!); that’s an amazing example of a life commitment. He was born to die (and rise again!), and He realized that. May we die to our sin and take hold of the new life that Jesus offers us. I mean it.

We as humans were made to love adventure, to want to do big exciting things. One particular week I was feeling kind of down and like God wasn’t using me in the big ways I wanted Him to. So at youth group one Wednesday, we were singing “Devotion”, and I was kind of just mindlessly singing along until it got to the part that says “I will take up my cross and follow, LORD, where You lead me.” At that moment, if ever I have heard God’s voice (though not audible) it was then, and He so clearly seemed to say to me, “That is no small calling.” Waking up every morning, denying myself, and choosing to follow Christ no matter the cost is an adventure, and it’s not easy by any means. And I fail a very large majority of the time.

So my challenge to you is this: wake up each morning and re-sign up. If ever you received salvation, you have it and no one can snatch that away from you. But you need to re-DEDICATE your life every single morning. Preach the gospel to yourself every single day, and do not let it become stale to you.

Do it. I dare you.

Loving the Unlovely.

What you say and do has a bigger influence than you think.
I just finished reading an email from a friend of mine who used to go to my school (which is a CHRSTIAN school, staunch Baptist.) He left last year because he had gone there since preschool, and he still felt that he didn't fit in. I don't know when the rumours started, but some guys started telling everyone that he was bisexual, and then gay...and I know he wasn't always this way because he liked my friend (who was a girl) when we were in ninth grade and last year he asked me to homecoming. These guys thought it'd be funny to creep out one of their friends, a "homophobic", so they told this friend of mine to go in the bathroom and corner the guy to creep him out. And he did. Nearly everyone made fun of him...and he wasn't unaware of this.
A little while before he left the school, he wrote me a letter confessing all kinds of hurts in his life, and I won't expose those but I will say that he was hurting. A LOT. He felt used. Situations at home were far from perfect, and he contemplated suicide all the time.
In the email I got tonight, he said "What bothers me the most about [your school] is that they make fun of people for being different, I became so stressed, I almost killed myself, then I found a friend in something that didn't judge me, didn't bother me, didn't put me down, it was music. It opened my mind to the ideals that being different scares people and that can mean being superior." Marilyn Manson understood his hurts, Marilyn Manson's lyrics applied to him. His gay friends understood him, his gay friends accepted him. His boyfriend cares about him. And as for everybody else: if you can't make them love you, make them fear you. So he spread some death threat rumours, told people he was communist, etc. etc. And mission accomplished: everyone feared him.
My friends, we failed at showing this guy the love of Christ. When he was telling me about his new school, he even said "there are a lot more nice people there than there are at my school (which is sad, cause many would think the opposite.)" 2 Corinthians 5:20 says "Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us..." We've done a pretty bad job representing the love that Jesus has shown us. How is he to know that a Saviour loves him? He's heard the gospel a zillion times, but he hasn't SEEN the gospel, if that makes sense. The Marilyn Manson song he told me about that really had lyrics that applied to him has a part that says "I never really hated a one true god but the God of the people I hated." If God acts anything like "His people" do, then he's not interested. OUCH.
Do know that I'm not trying to preach to you guys and hate on everyone, because I have done a cruddy job loving others too, but man...how far will we go for a joke? He mentioned that another thing he didn't like about my school was that some find it humorous that they think some people are going to burn in hell. You guys, hell isn't a joke. Hell is for real. It is a sick nasty place worse than anything we can ever imagine; it is eternal separation from God and that is sickening. Yet we joke "haha you're gonna go to hell for that", etc. etc. Is it really worth it? (And while I'm on that note, I just want to remind you guys, especially those of you who have been walking in Christian circles for a long time: don't get so comfortable with the things of God that you no longer fear Him. And when I say fear I mean revere Him...a lot of times it's very easy to make jokes about Him or to so casually mention the name of Jesus, and we don't realize the power that is in the Name and we obviously don't have a good picture of how truly awesome our LORD is. Just a reminder.)
Is it worth it, friends, to joke about gay people? Their lifestyle is wrong, yessir, and homosexuality is a choice they have to make for themselves, but most of the time it's our fault for leading them on that path anyways. If they're told constantly "haha you're gay" or "go away, faggot" then it might enter their brains that maybe they are. It's like eating disorders...if a perfectly normal-sized girl hears some people snickering about her weight, she'll think "Oh my goodness I'm fat" and she might develop an eating disorder...was she really "fat"? No. But others' heartless words led her to believe that. And she acted upon it.
I just want to challenge you guys: watch your tongue. Watch your facial expressions. People notice if you exchange judgmental glances with a friend after someone said something a little odd. We're ripping people apart with our words. What we may see as harmless leads the harmed to go home and long for dying!
It's far better to be known for being silent than to be known for tearing down others. And the latter is far easier to do; I think those who don't talk that much have a lot more wisdom than the rest of us.
So, my friends, I'm asking you to love people. Yeah, they might say or do strange things and it might be really easy to make fun of them (even behind their backs), but right now what they're not getting from Christians is love, and they're not getting the gospel. I beg of you, please...love the "unlovely."

Eaten Up.

God totally shook me this week, and it seems like everything I’ve been learning lately at church, in my quiet times, through books I’m reading, and through my music has culminated and been summed up by Psalm 69:9:

“Because zeal for Your house has eaten me up, and the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.”

I learned this verse while reading in John 2 (this is the NKJV)...
“Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, ‘Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!’ Then His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.’”

Jesus was so “eaten up” (in Hebrew it means ‘destroyed’ and ‘consumed’) with passion for God that He absolutely hated the things that God hates, and absolutely loved the things that God loves. A few weeks ago one of my friends was teaching my Sunday School class about the holiness of God, and how since He is such a holy perfect God, He hates sin more than we ever could understand. (And let me clarify what I mean by sin; sin is not “drugs, sex, and rap music.” When I talk about sin I mean doing stuff that makes God sad, or failing to do stuff that makes God happy…basically sin is rebellion against God...and every single one of us is very very guilty of that, even if you don’t do the “typical” stuff that the “moral” people look down upon.) So since God is so holy and just, when He sees us giving in to the flesh rather than surrendering to Him, it’s like we’re drinking someone else’s vomit, which is absolutely disgusting, but still not an adequate portrayal of how God sees sin. So in order for us who sin to be able to have a relationship with such a holy God, Jesus (the sinless one) came to die for us sinners before we even knew Him. (Romans 5!) What a beautiful way for both God’s love and His justice to be satisfied!

So anyways, Jesus saw sin like God saw it…so when He saw people making a mockery of the temple, He was angry. And He did something about it. May we be so consumed by God that we love the things He loves and hates the things He hates too. This should radically change the way we live our lives. In Isaiah 6, upon encountering God, Isaiah said “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” In this verse, “ruined” also means to be destroyed. So God, upon us seeing Him, will ruin who we are and rebuild us to who He wants us to be…so what a beautiful destruction!

Lately I’ve read some awesome books by people who have been “ruined” by God. Gary Witherall wrote a book called “Total Abandon” that talks about how he and his wife Bonnie were serving as missionaries in Lebanon. They were “souled out” to God; forsaking all that they were to be used by God in a country that was very closed to Christians. Bonnie was killed on November 21, 2002, by a Muslim extremist…and Gary, through his pain, forgave her murderer and continued serving God. Gary Witherall was ruined.

On Tuesday I started reading “Through Gates of Splendor” by Elisabeth Elliot. (She is the wife of Jim Elliot, one of the men speared by the Auca Indians while trying to show the love of Christ.) I haven't even really gotten to the part where he's a missionary yet; just his journal entries from his early life are so insightful.

After trying to lead Gospel meetings for youths that turned out very unsuccessful, he wrote "This problem of meeting a culture with truth from God is the most difficult kind of thing. One comes as a renovator, a conditioner of society, and society is in no mood to be conditioned. The fixedness of the human mind is the wall of Jericho to Gospel preaching. GOD must shake, or there will be no shaking." Wow! What a beautiful picture of salvation! Jericho, like the lost soul, is closed to Him and is perfectly content with the wickedness going on inside. And He commands us Christians to "walk around the walls" to pray for these people and proclaim to them the gospel, and when the time is right, if He so chooses, Jesus tears the walls of their stony hearts down, and He enters. He alone is capable of this beautiful destruction. Praise God for destroying the walls of Jericho around my own heart, so that He may enter in!

Another thing Jim said that I thought was totally cool was in a letter he wrote to his parents regarding his numerous awards and achievements for academics, wrestling, popularity, the whole gamut. But in spite of this, he said, "The LORD has given me a hunger for righteousness and piety that alone can be of Himself. Such hungering He alone can satisfy, yet satan would delude and cast up all sorts of baubles, social life, a name renowned, a position of importance, scholastic attainment. What are these but the objects of the 'desire of the Gentiles' whose cravings are warped perverted. Surely they can mean nothing to to the soul who has seen the beauty of Jesus Christ...life is not here, but hid above with Christ in God, and therein I rejoice and sing as I think on such high exaltation." I think we all can look at our own lives or our little trophy closet and see all the accomplishments we’ve made and, even if we don’t say it out loud, we take great pride in them. Truly, in light of the Kingdom of God, these things mean nothing! When I get to Heaven God won't say "Good job being homecoming representative in tenth grade, Hope. I always wanted you to be kinda popular." NO NO NO NO! If I were truly unashamed of the gospel (Romans 1:16 yay!) I would have a great deal less friends. I have abused the gift of encouragement that God has given me to make friends and increase social status...life is such a vapor, and all these things are vapors too, vapors in which I once and delighted and of now am ashamed. (In case you can’t tell, striving for popularity is one of my biggest struggles haha.)

Jim’s friend Ed McCully said this as God was working on his heart to come to Ecuador: "I have one desire now: to live a life of reckless abandon for the LORD, putting all my energy and strength into it. Maybe He'll send me someplace where the name of Jesus Christ is unknown...I'm taking the LORD at His word, and I'm trusting Him to prove His Word. It's kind of like putting all your eggs in one basket, but we've already put our trust in Him for salvation, so why not do it as far as our life is concerned? If there's nothing to this business of eternal life we might as well lose everything in one crack and throw our present life away with our life hereafter. But if there IS something to it; then everything else the LORD says must hold true likewise."

What a good point! If we trust Jesus for salvation (which is a biggie) why don't we trust Him for His direction in our lives? Why don’t we trust Him to abolish who we are and recreate us to who He wants us to be? One time a girl named Lauren was being introduced to speak to our youth group, and my youth pastor described her as “There’s not much of Lauren left.” WOW! God shines so brightly through her that (for the most part) her personality is not her own, her words are not her own; her every thought is geared towards pleasing God. Such is a life that has been “eaten up” by zeal for His house.

I’ll close with this example that I heard on Wednesday: Sometimes in forestry it’s necessary to make something called a “prescribed burn” where the forest is set on fire, but it’s controlled in such a way that it doesn’t destroy any more than what’s needed. By setting the forest on fire, the old is destroyed and new life begins. Some seeds (such as sequoia) are actually dormant until fire breaks down the seed coating. We need God to destroy who we are and replace us with who He is; it might be painful to let go of things we always loved or start doing things we always hated, but we must remember that God’s ways are always best, no exceptions.

So surrender yourself to Him.
Ask to be consumed with passion for Him.
Love Him.
Live for Him.
Be ruined by Him.
Do it.
I dare you.