UNCHANGING

UNCHANGING

God blessed me with the gift of faith in 2003 in my mid-thirties. I didn’t grow up reading my Bible or having any awareness or understanding of the overarching story of redemption therein. I began graduate level seminary training about 18 months later in 2005 and moved to Dallas to begin full-time studies in 2006.

My expectations for seminary were very VERY different than reality. Back home in San Antonio I’d had a couple of tremendous mentors take me under their wings almost immediately. They were both prominent leaders at my home church. One was the senior pastor of one of the largest churches in S.A., the other was the single adults pastor of the same church.

My expectations for seminary were that I’d not only have two incredible mentors like Don and Robert, but that I’d have dozens of them! I’d have a new home church where godly men would seek me out - affirm my call to ministry - invest in me - mentor me - pour into me - disciple me… AND on top of that I’d have multiple seminary professors who would do the same thing!

Reality was very different. Back home in S.A. the senior pastor called me on a Saturday afternoon just six days after my first visit. He spent about 30 minutes on the phone listening to me answer his question, “Kevin, how did you come to know the LORD?” A few weeks later the single adults pastor invited me to lunch and began pouring into me: asking, listening, helping, caring… discipling.

In Dallas I had none of that. Nobody called. Nobody asked my name. Nobody asked anything. There was nobody to listen or care… Nobody, except God.

I heard a sermon once where the pastor said, “I believe we look the most like Christ when we love our enemies.” His point was that it’s easier to get caught up in churchy activities that seem incredibly important: mission, teaching, service projects, etc., but it’s contrary to our fleshly, selfish, fallen character to really love the mean-spirited and unloveable of the world.

I think that pastor was on the right track, but I believe the Bible teaches us that we look most like Christ not in a particular aspect of His character or in imitating a particular behavior, but rather as our lives are completely poured out in simple obedience to the will of the Father. That’s what Jesus has done perpetually and eternally - forever focused on, concerned with, devoted to, and invested in the heart and will of the Father.

The idea of loving our enemies comes from Matthew 5:44. Jesus didn’t spend His the majority of His time doing apologetics or community service with the guys who wanted to kill Him, i.e. the Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, Teachers of the Law, and other religious leaders; instead, Jesus spent the vast majority of His time with the Twelve Disciples… teaching, mentoring, listening, caring, loving, pouring into, dying for, and commissioning them to do the very same after He had risen. “Disciple.”

Jesus’ final words recorded on earth - whether looking at Matthew’s gospel or the book of Acts - have the same imperative: disciple.

The “success” of the local church rises and falls on our simple obedience to that simple truth - disciple.

Is your’s a church where the senior leadership personally invests, personally calls, asks, listens, invites, challenges, mentors, teaches, and is intimately poured out and spent for the lives of their flock? Or, is your’s a church where the kinds of things Jesus did are relegated and delegated to interns, volunteers, automated databases, and spam email - thus taking a back seat to the “more important” task of big-time ministers, i.e. stage time and performing on Sunday mornings?

Love isn’t a performance, but rather the unchanging, essential, and eternal character of God.

Preaching can become self-serving. Mission trips can become like a euphoric spiritual drug requiring more and more until it just doesn’t do it for you any more. Teaching can be a venue to demonstrate your superior knowledge. But pouring yourself out for others, asking sincere questions, listening, loving, and genuine, authentic, altruistic Christian discipleship cannot be twisted or perverted.

Love looks like the advent/coming of Jesus, His life poured out for us, His death as the perfect love-offering to the Father while we were still sinners, and His imperative command for us to live life in that very same fashion and manner… to love, ask, listen, pray for, cry with, rebuke, encourage, and celebrate with.

Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” It’s easier to sacrifice yourself in a moment of narcissistic heroism - it’s exponentially more difficult to be poured out every minute of every day for God’s glory until He calls you home or comes again.

Is that what your church looks like?

Is that what your life looks like?

If your excuse is, “I don’t know how,” then the response is, “Learn.”

Pick up your Bible, lean in with all sincerity and vigor, read, learn, while SIMULTANEOUSLY living-out the unchanging culture and character of God… lay down your life… disciple.

Blessing,

-Kevin