Guest Post: Retreating Into The Love of Jesus
Today’s post features my good friend Bryan Hamilton. Bryan is part of our house church and has recently been instrumental in getting an LTG started. For those who don’t know him, Bryan has a very unique perspective on life and loves to photoshop himself (and others) in unusual situations. Bryan blogs regularly on Facebook about Jesus, his personal journey into spiritual maturity, and the difficulties the church will face as we enter the end of the age. You can request to be Bryan’s friend and read more here.
Recently I was listening to Misty Edwards on the live feed singing about the love of the Jesus for us. It got me thinking, what does the love of Jesus look like? This a pretty basic question that many beyond count have tried to answer.
I think that the most common expression of Jesus’ love that my friends and I know is retreating into the love of Jesus. It is a wonderful thing to be able to retreat into the gentle mercy that Jesus showed to the woman caught in the midst of adultery, the prodigal son, and the woman with the alabaster jar. Over the last four years this is the type of love I have been learning—laying on the chest of Jesus. We must learn to cry, be angry, and pour out sins before the Father.
The Lord is building trust and confidence in our relationships with Him. I see a whole company of people learning and growing in the love of Jesus. As we do, we are beginning to grow and mature into adults. We have become very skilled at accepting people in their weakness with compassion and mercy. Jesus was fully able to show love beyond compassion and mercy. There are other forms of love that were hard parts of Jesus’ personality, His leadership and His ministry that we have failed to mature in. Let us to continue to grow in the love of Jesus until we look like Him.
5 points
1. Jesus was able to confront and correct others without a judgmental or religious spirit. Jesus exhorted Peter for hearing that He was the Christ. Then He rebuked Peter calling Him Satan because he had on his mind the things of man and not the things of God. Peter had enough trust with Jesus to know His heart—that He was not actually calling him Satan, but showing him he had his mind on the wrong thing. Until we can develop that level of trust with Jesus and each other we will not be able to walk in the ministry of confrontation which we need to keep each other out of deception. We will not be able to be one in Spirit and truth as Jesus wanted.
2. Jesus was able to walk in righteous zeal without crushing the weak and insecure. Jesus cleared the temple with a whip and displayed passion for His Father’s ways. I hear many preachers walk in zeal and make statements that in my weak faith really torque up my heart. Jesus could display zeal in such a way as to challenge the right people and protect the right people. Until we can do that the ministry of Jesus will be diminished in us, because the world will see the same old judgmental church it has always seen, and dismiss it.
3. Jesus was able to speak hard truths, offend the religious, and be okay with it. Jesus was unapologetic about the reality of Hell and the judgment to come. He spoke the truth because it was the highest form of love. Jesus also went out of His way to offend the religious. He provoked them by picking wheat and healing on the Sabbath. He pronounces woes on them, and He pronounced woes on those who didn’t except Him. We hide in fear behind God’s love and compassion because we don’t want to reject people. Until we can walk hand in hand with Jesus in this ministry the Gospel will not go forth in power as it meant to.
4. Jesus was able to father His disciples with a spirit of excellence and be okay when most people walked away when it was too hard. The parable of the soils had four different soils. When the seeds were thrown on the soils, three out of the four soils did not bear good fruit. When we are sent out into the harvest field we need to be okay with three fourths of the soils we sow into not bearing fruit. Jesus was okay with it. We give up because it is too hard, soured with bitterness because of failure. Until we are willing to labor without looking at the harvest as an entitlement we will not be able to face the harshness of the field. Jesus bought the whole field to get the jewel—we have to as well.
5. Jesus was able to suffer for His Father and not come out a wounded, emotional wreck. How was it that Jesus was able to bear the sins of the world and not need a psychologist and medication? How is it that Paul was able to endure stoning and lashes and rejoice? We are a spoiled and pampered people that need to feel good all the time. Until we are willing to lay down our pampered flesh we will not be able to labor in the fields for God’s harvest.
I would encourage us to look at all of the life of Jesus. There is so much more to the Christian walk than what we have. Jesus is the perfect reflection of the Father, so let us endeavor to grow up into all aspects of His personality. It is okay to retreat into the love of Jesus, we need it. Understand that it is a retreat, though, it is not a victory. If we are always retreating we will never win the battles we need to win. If we don’t move past retreating into the love of Jesus as a people we will never grow into adults in the Spirit. The hard parts of Jesus’ personality, His leadership and His ministry are all a part of the field. Let us finally purchase the whole field and be okay with it, it is well worth it.
Bryan will be visiting the blog throughout the day to answer any questions and respond to comments.
What Going To An Easter Service Taught Me About My House Church
Recently my wife and I made a trek up to Minneapolis to see her family. Long story short, we had a great time meeting relatives, hanging out with friends, and even meeting some new ones. Now, because we’ve been part of a house church for some time, if we’re out of town on a weekend we skip “going to a service” on Sunday morning out of some sense of guilt, unless of course we know people in the city that are meeting together at that time.
This being Easter Sunday, however, it felt more appropriate to actually go and gather with believers. So we visited my wife’s relatives’ church on Sunday morning and worshipped the Lord with them. What I wasn’t expecting was what I learned about my house church from being with them.
Now, before we go too much further, I have a confession to make. I hate Easter celebrations. Don’t get me wrong: I love the topic of the Lord’s resurrection. In my mind the Resurrection of Christ should be the premiere holiday of our faith. Everything hinges on the resurrection. I hate Easter celebrations because of what we make them. See, it seems to me that American Christians, still operating from a mindset born in a Christian subculture, have conflicting feelings about how Easter should be celebrated. Is it a our chance to worship Christ with abandon and celebrate the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords? Or is it a time when all of our lost friends and relatives are looking to go to a church service and hear about the Resurrection. In my mind, most churches think that it’s both.
And because they try to do both of these things, they end up doing neither of them well. Worship is both celebratory but not too celebratory. Preaching and Teaching are focused on the resurrection, but it’s simplified to the point where unbelievers can understand it but most believers are not edified. In my mind we (all churches) try to do both and end up accomplishing neither. (Just a side note: I’ve never met anyone who’s story about coming to Christ starts or ends with an Easter service. I’m not saying they don’t exist. I’m just saying I haven’t heard one.) Having confessed that, I was expecting to experience that very phenomenon, but I wasn’t expecting to learn about my house church from what I experienced.
So, here’s what I learned:
- I don’t expect unbelievers to show up at our house church. Our house church is hard to find. It moves around. If you don’t know where it’s meeting or you don’t know someone who does, you won’t be able to find it. So as you might imagine, we don’t have many folks showing up to our meetings unannounced, especially lost people. No one comes to our house church because it’s a holiday or they haven’t “been to church” in a while.
- Not expecting unbelievers to show up has benefited us. That might be a bit of a shocking statement, but let me explain. I don’t ever worry any more about whether I’m talking about something too deep for an unbeliever in our midst. I don’t adjust my teaching style to be politically correct or to not offend someone. I share out of the Bible about the things that Jesus is giving me. If someone disagrees with something I’m talking about, a conversation happens. It’s messy and unpredictable but it has made us all stronger by having to wrestle with an undiluted* message. No teaching is designed to be attractive to outsiders.
- Not expecting unbelievers to show up has helped us serve and touch lost people better. So this seems counter-intuitive, but think about it. I know (more or less) who to expect at house church. The beauty of not expecting unbelievers is we totally notice when one shows up. This causes us to acknowledge their presence with us and serve them specifically, not knowing how long they will be with us. We take time to pray and prophesy over those that are new in our midst. Not doing that seems wrong somehow now. But we also continue to be ourselves and edify one another during our gatherings, without watering down what happens for the newcomers. The result is they get to see us do what we always do and they get the undiluted Christian life, without trying to impress someone. Hopefully it gets close to what Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 14:24-25.
- I expect to be involved in a spiritual gathering. Okay, so this is a totally unrelated to the idea of having unbelievers in a church gathering, but I learned this about myself—I expect to participate when I gather with a group of believers. I noticed this because I felt strangely useless in this meeting that I participated in on our trip and the reason why is it’s no longer okay for me to sit by idly when I gather with other believers in my church. It was strange, because I’m not used to feeling this way in larger gatherings. Would to God that we all felt this way.
So that’s what I learned. If you’re part of a house church and have had a chance to gather with believers in a more traditional context lately, have you learned anything about yourself? Leave a comment so we can help each other learn from God is doing in each other.
*Please note that whenever I use the word “diluted” or “undiluted” in this post, I’m using it to describe a situation where the desire to win the approval of unredeemed men causes harm to the message of Christ. Diluted gospels and undiluted gospels can occur in organic and istitutional churches . However, the whole point of this post is that my time in an organic church has aided our community in this regard.
Photo Credit: Michael leading the congregation in worship by James.Thompson
Those In Whom The Fire Has Been Kindled
Eirene writes a blog that I love called “He is My Delight.” I previously named her blog as one of the top five blogs I wouldn’t unsubscribe from. I had hoped to capture one of her quotes from her latest post on twitter, but it’s too long to tweet and too great to cut. So, I share it for you here for the good of your soul.
Her post is about those whose hearts have been lit on fire by a word from God. Eirene says:
“Speak to me God!” is the cry of their heart, and they treasure one word from heaven over 10,000 message[s] from the most learned theologians.
You can read more of Eirene’s excellent post here.
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 