“As he went out into the street, a man came running up, greeted him with great reverence, and asked, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to get eternal life?’

Jesus said, ‘Why are you calling me good? No one is good, only God. You know the commandments: Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t cheat, honor your father and mother.’

He said, ‘Teacher, I have—from my youth—kept them all!’

Jesus looked him hard in the eye—and loved him! He said, ‘There’s one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me.’

The man’s face clouded over. This was the last thing he expected to hear, and he walked off with a heavy heart. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about to let go.

Looking at his disciples, Jesus said, ‘Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people who ‘have it all’ to enter God’s kingdom?’ The disciples couldn’t believe what they were hearing, but Jesus kept on: ‘You can’t imagine how difficult. I’d say it’s easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for the rich to get into God’s kingdom.’

That got their attention. ‘Then who has any chance at all?’ they asked.

Jesus was blunt: ‘No chance at all if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you let God do it (Mark 10:17-27, The Message)'”

Tonight I heard something in a sermon that just about blew my puny little mind. I’ve grown up in and around Church, so I was very familiar with this story about the rich young ruler who Jesus asked to sell everything and give to the poor and follow Him. This man went away sad because he loved money more than God.

But Pastor Mike pointed out something to me that I had never once thought about.

There were two rich young rulers in this story.

One was young, had immense wealth, and probably had a title of some kind. Maybe he had a royal lineage or a family of significance. We don’t ever know his name. It’s funny that he clung to his wealth instead of following Jesus, but ended up with neither. Honestly, have you ever seen a hearse followed by a U-Haul? It’s because you can’t take any earthly wealth with you when you die.

But there was another rich young ruler in this story. He was also young. He had way more wealth than the other when you consider that He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and that the world and everything in it belongs to Him. He didn’t come from royalty, but He is King of the Universe. He is the absolute ruler of all that is.

But He gave all that up. The Bible says He didn’t take advantage of His being equal with God (and being the very God Himself), but emptied Himself. He came as a humble servant, born of a virgin betrothed to a carpenter. He was obedient to the point of death on a criminal’s cross. What He gained was salvation and life for you and me.

The other rich young ruler went away sad because he couldn’t fathom that when Jesus asked him to give up all his earthly treasures, it wasn’t just about sacrifice. Jesus had something better, grander, far more lasting in mind. Jesus had eternal abundant life in mind, both now and forever.

Peter later commented that he and the rest had given up everything to follow Jesus. Jesus replied that what they had given up didn’t even begin to compare with what they would gain in this life and the life to come, true riches that thieves can’t steal and rust and moths can’t destroy.

The greatest treasure Jesus gives to anyone who follows Him, regardless of the cost, is simply Jesus Himself.

So occasionally I will borrow material from others, especially when I find it speaks to me profoundly and personally. In this case, it’s about learning how to slow down and to cultivate silence in a world full of hurry and noise. Now that all the usual four-letter words are so commonplace, the only word that feels like a curse word is silence. Yet silence is where God most often speaks.

Here’s something I found from Kairos Pastor Mike Harder about how to slow down and be still before God:

“Here is one way you can slow down. Try the CPR method: Choose, Pray, Read)

1. Choose 15 minutes today to focus on God. It could be before you eat breakfast or at lunch. 

2. Pray. Tell God what you are available for whatever he wants you to do. 

3. Read a Bible Passage. If you need a suggestion, choose a Psalm. Psalm 27 is a great place to start.”

If you want a place to start to hear from God, you won’t go wrong with God’s revealed word, the Bible. I’ve always heard that a good practice is to read through the Proverbs each month. Also, you can read through the Psalms in roughly five months with one per day (and maybe a few days for Psalm 119).

The point is to be intentional about creating space in your schedule for God to speak. If you don’t have time for God, it’s probably because God isn’t a priority to you. You always make time for what matters most. Always.

This may be a way to revive your spiritual life if it has grown stale or stagnant. Above everything else, God honors those who continually seek Him as though their lives depended on it. Because honestly, they do.

As an admitted (and hopefully recovering) people pleaser, I want people to like me. I want people to remember me and to say good things about me. But that’s not what’s most important to me anymore.

I truly hope that people who see me and meet me will want to meet the God I’ve known for a long, long time. The God who has always known my name and who I am, even when I’d forgotten. The God who called me by that name before I knew His name.

Besides, all those who forget my name but who are captivated by my God will have an eternity to know my name. But way above that, they will have that same eternity to know and love all the names of the God who has made Himself known to us since the very beginning.

“simply the quieting now…
a waiting on Him . . .
all our Hope.
#EveningPrayer” (Ann Voskamp).

“Father,
Forgive me for all my doubts, worries, and fears.
Forgive me for my impatience as I wait in this place.
Forgive me for questioning the story you’ve written for me.
I believe, help me in my unbelief!
Help me to remember that it is good to wait for you.
Grant me the joy that comes from knowing you.
Fill my heart with gospel joy” (Christina Fox).

Lord,
Help us to wait expectantly and to wait well, not as idle people but as those who prepare their hearts as a farmer prepares the soil of his crops to receive the rain.

Amen.

In case you missed it, you still have a few minutes to get your taco for Cinco de Mayo.

Or you could just wait until the next Taco Tuesday in a few days.

Or you could just remember that if you try hard and believe in yourself, every day is Taco Tuesday.

Now you have 21 minutes left of this Cinco de Mayo. Better get moving if you want that taco.

Who are the people in your life that come to mind most often? Who are the people that when you hear their names, you smile? What is is about them that causes you to remember them fondly and brings them to your mind regularly?

Be the person who you would like to remember. How? You treat them like you would want to be treated. You love them like you want to be loved. You do for them what the people you remember most in a good way did for you.

The best way to show gratitude for someone who’s no longer here is to be to someone else what they were to you. To show the kindness and generosity to another that they showed to you.

Chances are, the people who impacted you most and left the biggest impression on you were the ones who more than anyone else were trying to live like Jesus. So if you want to honor that legacy, you follow in their footsteps by following in the footsteps of Jesus and living like He did.

The way you do that is to let His life flow through you by the time you spend with Him just as those who loved you best spent time with you.

How would you like people to remember you? Maybe the better question is how would you like people to remember the Jesus they saw in you?

“A mosaic consists of thousands of little stones. Some are blue, some are green, some are yellow, some are gold. When we bring our faces close to the mosaic, we can admire the beauty of each stone. But as we step back from it, we can see that all these little stones reveal to us a beautiful picture, telling a story none of these stones can tell by itself.

That is what our life in community is about. Each of us is like a little stone, but together we reveal the face of God to the world. Nobody can say: ‘I make God visible.’ But others who see us together can say: ‘They make God visible.’ Community is where humility and glory touch” #henrinouwen

We still need community now as much as we ever did. We need each other. That’s why God instituted the Church as His mode of doing the life of faith. And when I say Church, I don’t mean a building of bricks and mortar but a gathering of God’s people fulfilling God’s purposes in the strength of God’s power.

If you ever watch nature shows, then you know that predators go after the isolated prey. They don’t attack the herds and the groups as much as they attack the ones who fall behind. Satan’s greatest strategy in luring you into temptation isn’t in what he offers or even how he offers it but in getting you to fight him alone.

Community is where two or more are gathered in the name of Jesus, because that’s where Jesus promises to be every single time. Community is what drew people to Jesus in those early days when they saw how much those believers loved each other. Community is where God calls people to the ministry, to missions, and to salvation.

“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together” (African Proverb)

“A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

Tonight we sent off another longtime Kairos attender and volunteer. He was one that I looked forward to seeing every week for our friendly sports debates. God has called him to a new season in a new place, but he’s another in a long line of people God put in my life preparing me for a future that I’ve only been able to glimpse but only God can see.

It’s amazing how creative God is in the way He weaves people in and out of your story. Sometimes, it’s for five minutes. Sometimes, it’s five years. You never know the lessons you will learn from the most unlikely places if you keep your eyes on Jesus and not on other people. When you stop chasing after people, you allow the right people to catch you.

It’s funny how the people you start off not liking become the ones God uses the most to change your attitude and your heart. You start off praying for God to change them or to change your circumstances but God is more interested in changing you. In time, you might see these people through a new set of eyes and realize that they’re angels in disguise and some of the best people you’ll ever know.

Hopefully, this will be the last farewell for a while, but I’m blessed and thankful to have known these people and to see them following God’s call for His glory and their more complete fulfillment in a new way. I have memories and footprints in my heart that I keep always.

I’m actually not against going to a breeder to buy a dog. I probably couldn’t afford it, but if you can then more power to you. I think that if you’re looking for a dog, the first place you should look is in a shelter. Those dogs (and cats) have lots of love left to give. They’re the most appreciative and grateful for anything that you give them.

If you’ve ever lost a pet, then you know how heart-wrenching it is. It feels like a piece of you is gone. It’s almost like an amputation where you still feel phantom pains in the arm or leg that’s gone. There will always be a void after your beloved pet goes.

But while you can never replace that pet, you can take all the love and pay it forward to the next animal. You can fill the void (even if not completely) by giving another dog or cat a place. They say that grief is just love with nowhere to go, and one way to help the grieving process along is to give your love an outlet.

So many animals in shelters need a home. Who knows what led to them being there, but the point is that they don’t have to stay there. You can be the one to bring one of them home.

Again, buying from a breeder is not a sin. In fact, it’s a very good thing. But please consider a shelter animal first. They need love just as much as any pure breed.

Over a year after we purchased the property at 901 Acklen Avenue in Nashville, Tennessee, we had our long-awaited, much-anticipated groundbreaking for The Church at Avenue South and our new building.

It was a long time coming. At times, it felt like I was a kid again around the holiday season thinking that Christmas would never get here. Fairly recently, I had been having doubts about whether we would ever get that last approval from the city to begin our renovations and additions.

But I’m so thankful that God had this particular day in mind long before it ever entered our minds. I’m sure one day we will look back and see that God’s timing on this was as perfect as it has ever been on anything He’s ever done. One day we will look back and say that this was the beginning of something special that God did in the city of Nashville and in the state of Tennessee.

I kept thinking about Psalm 126 when the psalmist talks about the people of God returning to their homeland after decades in exile. “It seemed like a dream, too good to be true . . . We laughed, we sang, we couldn’t believe our good fortune” (Psalm 126:1,2).

It did seem like a dream. Except this was something I could never have dreamed of when we launched almost nine years ago. This was God doing above and beyond anything we could ask or imagine. This was where God had bigger dreams for us than we had for ourselves.

I still hear the refrain from the old song God of This City in my mind from time to time:

“For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this city
Greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this city”

And I want to be there when they happen.