ministry

Brokenness and Community

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We are all broken. Some are just better at hiding it than others, but deep down inside we know we don’t work right. I believe when God reveals our brokenness within the context of community, we have two choices. I can see your brokenness and choose to walk away and shut you out or I can choose to walk with you and share your burdens, “and thereby fulfill the law of Christ” (Ephesians 6:2). I’m not saying it’s wrong to walk away; some are not ready to handle brokenness in others. But to stay and walk with a brother or sister through brokenness is the better way.

I also think about the image of Jesus breaking bread and blessing it. If we want God to bless us, or better yet to bless others through us, we must first be broken. Only in the context of community where we love each other and share joys and sorrows and bear each other’s burdens can this happen. We shouldn’t just pray for blessings on each other. We should be able to pray for brokenness for each other. We should be authentic and transparent enough to be broken and honest with each other.

I am reminded of Henri Nouwen’s term “wounded healer.” If we aren’t broken, we can never reach beyond the surface in our relationships and serving and ministry, but if we are broken, we can empathize with the weaknesses of others. The more we own our brokenness, the more loving and Christlike we will be toward the brokenness in others.

I want to buck the trend that says that weakness is something you don’t talk about. I want to be like Paul who boasted in his weakness, because that’s where Christ’s strength is perfected. Let people see that you are not a perfect saint, but a weak and broken and transparent vessel through which God’s love can pour unhindered to the world around you.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

I want to be maladjusted

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I was thinking about a speech Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave where he stated that he was proud to be maladjusted to things like social injustice. I like that terminology. I am also proud to be maladjusted to this world that doesn’t work and to the church when there’s too much world and not enough Word.

I want to be maladjusted to superficial relationships and fair-weather friends and to me when I am both of these.

I want to be maladjusted to when the most exclusive social circles are in church settings.

I want to be maladjusted to inauthenticity in myself and others instead of compassionately bearing one another’s burdens.

I want to be maladjusted to looking out for my own interests as I walk right past the broken and hurting without even seeing them.

I want to be maladjusted to thinking that spiritual problems can have political answers.

I want to be maladjusted to giving God my leftovers and not laying down my life for the Kingdom of Christ.

I want to be maladjusted to a self-sufficient American Church who relies on their own talents, abilities and strategies and does not cry out to the Holy Spirit out of utter need and dependency.

I want to be maladjusted to commitment-phobic Christianity when other Christians around the world are willing to pay with their lives for the privilege of what we take for granted on a daily basis.

I want to be maladjusted to anything less than building-shaking, fire-falling, Spirit-drenched revival among God’s people.

I want to be maladjusted to this world and not try to fit in, but instead be like my Lord Jesus Christ.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Thoughts on prayer and healing

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I was thinking today about Job’s situation and how it relates to mine (and possibly yours, too). In Job 42, God tells Job’s friends that they have slandered Job and misrepresented God. He tells them that Job will pray for them, and He will hear him and not deal with them as they deserve. Job prays for his friends, then God gives him back what he lost, doubled.

Job had to pray for those who wronged him before God restored him. Job had to forgive the ones who slandered him and his God. Is there some area of your life that needs healing and/or restoration? It could be that God is waiting for you to pray for the ones who hurt you in that area before he restores to you what you lost or heals you.

As much as I pray for God to forgive those who hurt me, that much will God forgive me (see the Lord’s prayer). As much as I pray for God to bless those who slander me, God will bless me. As much as I pray for the restoration and healing of those whose wounds I carry, God will restore and heal me.

This is me thinking out loud again. So take it for what it’s worth. As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

What I want (what we should all want)

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“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

I don’t want people to know me for being smart or funny or clever or nice or gentle. I want people to see me and be astonished and say “That man has been with Jesus.” I hope that is your prayer, too. That outsiders will look at us and recognize Jesus in us, and see that we, like Moses, are radiant from having been face-to-face with the King of the Universe. Because when we have been with Jesus, we are never the same. We can never again settle. We are “ruined for the ordinary.”

Which brings up a convicting point for me. I NEED TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH JESUS. If I only give Him 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there, I doubt that people will know that I have been with Him. It’s got to be more. If I am to love with the love of Jesus and be His hands and feet to the world, I have to know His heart much more fully than I do now.

Here’s a question that nailed me today. If your witness for Christ was limited to your facebook posts and replies and comments, what kind of testimony would that be? Would it be the kind that would make people want to know Jesus more or would it drive people away? Would people think that we were different or would they think we are just like them and therefore they have no use for what we have to say about our faith.

If we have been with Jesus, our words will match our walk and what comes out of our lips (and from our keyboards) will match our lifestyle.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Ruminations of a Ragamuffin

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“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you (John 15:18-19)

Someone pointed out to me today that verse and then went on to comment on who the people were who hated Jesus. They were not the prostitutes or tax-collectors or the outcasts or the sick. They were not the sinners and scum of the earth. The ones who hated Jesus were the upstanding religious folks. Because He dared to be spiritual but not religious. Because He was scandalous in who He loved and how much He loved. Because of who He hung out (the sinners) with and who He criticized (the religious). They hated Him so much they had Him killed.

If we are living the way Jesus lived and loving people the way Jesus loved people, we will be hated. Not by sinners and outcasts and reprobates, but by church people. When you try to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, the loudest ones to criticize you will be Christians. Maybe because your lifestyle will convict their complacency and lack of compassion.

If I had to be honest, I would say that most of the time I live more like a Pharisee than Jesus. I have my rules that everyone else must follow. I have my smug self-righteousness. I make myself the standard by which I measure everyone else. Thank God, there are moments when I try to look like Jesus and let Him love people through me. Hopefully, the Pharisee in me will decrease and the Jesus in me will increase.

One last thing. If Jesus ministered almost exclusively to the outcasts and downtrodden and saved His harshest comments for the religious holier-than-thou type, why do we do the opposite? Why do we cater to the sanctimonious and shut out the homeless, hopeless and loveless? If I am honest, I am just as needy of Jesus and His grace as anybody.

Jesus, help me love who You love and go to the hurting and broken and needy the way You did. Give me Your heart for the lost world. May I be Jesus to somebody today.

My first ever blog (tah-dah!)

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This is my first ever blog! WOOHOO!

By the way, the name of the blog comes from The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning, who is pretty much my favorite writer right now. In case you were wondering.

I think that there are two essentials in the faith. These come from James 1:27. “Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.” (from the Message translation) These are compassion and integrity.

Integrity is keeping yourself unstained by the world, and compassion is reaching out to the orphans and widows (or in our society, the homeless and loveless). We need both of these. Jesus had both during His earthly ministry. He was sinless and kept the law perfectly, but He reached out to society’s castaways and showed the world what the grace of God looks like.

How does that play out in real life? I am trying to figure that out myself. But I know I need both, so I try to live both.