On Dimes, Twenty Dollar Bills, and Spiritual Discipline
I was at one of our house churches the other day talking to an eleven year old who asked some great questions. We were talking about the places in Scripture where Jesus tells us to “go and buy gold refined by fire,” and his story where he tells us to “go and buy oil.” All of these are places that tell us go and develop a close relationship with Christ.
He was having a hard time understanding those concepts, so I told him this story:
“Imagine that your dad made you a deal. Every time you brought your dad a dime, your dad responded by giving you $20.00. Would you take your dad up on that deal?”
He shook his head yes.
“I bet you’d do it a lot, wouldn’t you?
He shook his head again.
“I bet you would. You’d do it until you became rich. Well that’s what its like with Jesus. We go and bring our small hearts to Jesus and ask him to reveal himself to us. We call this prayer. He responds by showing up and showing himself to us in ways that grow our hearts and make us wealthy in God, because that is real wealth — knowing God.”
Dallas Willard famously said, “Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.” We have to make the effort to show up and pray. We have to show up to encounter him. We bring our dime. When we do, God takes our ten cent prayers and brings $20 encounters and $20 answers to the things we ask for. This is grace.
This morning I was thinking of the conversation again. I realized that I hadn’t told my young friend the whole story. See, I had told the story to him as if the first dime he brings to his dad is his. The reality is one we forget often — the first dime he gave his dad is a dime his dad gave him first. We are able to bring our hearts in prayer to meet with God because he gave us the initial desire to do so. It was him, putting in us a desire to be close to him to begin with, that allows us to begin to want to pray. You may even be feeling the tug right now to spend time with Jesus. This is also grace.
So let’s bring our dimes and trade them in. The little we bring will be transformed into so much more. Let’s also not forget who gave us the dime in the first place.
Photo Credit: Drop It On A Dime by Voldy Morton
#dailygospel
My project is mostly over. Mostly.
So, slowly, ever so slowly, I’ve started to come out of my work coma.
That may mean you see me a little more in this space. We’ll see.
In the meantime, I had something small I wanted to share with you all. It’s called #dailygospel. A few months ago I became convicted that I’m not good at applying the Gospel to every area in my life.
Think of it like this: We like to think of the Gospel as the diving board into God’s Kingdom. You get into Heaven and become a Christian by the Gospel. The problem is that the Gospel is not just a diving board, it’s also the pool we jump into. We don’t graduate from the Gospel. We just continue to live in the light of it.
So while I can tell someone how to receive Christ, I’m less than stellar at applying the Gospel to every area of my life and the life of others. That needs to change.
So I launched #dailygospel. It’s a daily post on my main social media outlets (Facebook and Twitter) where I post a daily thought about how the gospel applies to everyday life. I’m not sure how long I’ll keep doing it. Maybe a couple more weeks or months. Maybe I’ll just never stop. Regardless, I’d love it if you’d join me. Maybe together, we can get better at applying the gospel not just to salvation, but to everything we do.
Where I’ve Been
A little over a year ago, I made a commitment to write every day. I did that for a lot longer than I thought possible and along the way I learned some things, made some new friends, was featured on a podcast, and had some great conversations. Then, one day in October of 2017, I just stopped, mid series.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve had several of you who were regular readers reach out to check in on me. Obviously the glaring difference of sharing on a regular basis and then going completely dark has left some of you wondering. The good news is I’m still following Jesus, part of one of our local house churches, and pressing into what the Lord has for us. The bad news is the picture above is not of me, nor is my absence due to me being somewhere similarly tropical.
The truth is I’ve been busy being a working father of five who also is trying to serve our house churches in my spare time. All of this has continued while I’ve been part of a fairly consuming project in my work life and that has prevented me from giving more attention to this space. In what little spare time I have, I’ve been attempting to complete a rough draft of the book I’m writing. You’ll probably hear more about it once I’ve got the first pass completed.
I think it’s fair to let you know I plan on trying to continue to write in this space, I’m just not sure about the frequency of my writing. My project is scheduled to wrap up in May. Once that project is finished, I plan on trying to find my way back to a sustainable rhythm of writing. If my assumptions are correct, that will look more like what I was doing when I was writing every day than what it currently looks like.
Lastly, if you’ve read this far, please pray for me. Pray that I hear clearly as I finish the manuscript for this extended tract I’m writing. Pray that I would have wisdom for the rest of this season at work and clarity on what comes next after that. If you’ve been encouraged by the stories from our house churches, pray that they would be strengthened in this season. I greatly appreciate it.
In your service,
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 